


Signal

by LuxLox



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Historical, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-03-28 13:43:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13905234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuxLox/pseuds/LuxLox
Summary: Alfred and Arthur wander off from their school hiking group. After being caught compromisingly, Alfred sets off deeper into the forest in order to hide from the embarrassment.1999. Exactly a year later, Exactly a year since Alfred went missing, and Arthur suddenly gets a long string of text messages. All from Alfred. All from 1998.(Inspired by WritingPrompts)





	1. Prologue; 1998

1998

 

The sun set low in the trees, breaking through the dense branches like stained shards of glass. The sky darkening into all colours; oranges, yellows, purples, blues and pinks, with the sun a large white window in the middle of them all, peeking over the zig zag of the black tree tops . It’s the type of weather that makes your hair feel soft and your face glow warmly. Arthur could stand here for a lifetime, just feeling the blanket of sunlight upon his skin, breathing the cold, fresh air, feeling a happiness and sense of excitement mould themselves together in the pit of his stomach. But he knew he couldn’t, he couldn’t even pretend to enjoy it. He was meant to hate this, like everybody else. He was meant to notice the deep tracks of mud up ahead, the little traps of cobwebs hiding in every bushy corner and the unenticing darkness that seemed to stretch forever and ever under the cage of trees ahead. But he just couldn’t. He was so happy. 

Alfred skimmed by him, and punched his shoulder lightly. “Hey Art.” He said, jogging forward a bit so he could stand in front of Arthur and face him as they walked. 

“Heya.” Arthur’s words came out long and sleepily. He had had a hell of a good nap on that long coach ride, and he really hadn’t quite woken up from it yet. 

“I stopped them from drawing a moustache on you. In the coach.”

“Ugh.” 

“They were probably gonna do a big ol’ Kentucky fried chicken dude one.” 

“Not Hitler?”

“That was one of the suggestions. We put it to a vote.” 

“Who won?”

“Don’t know. I stole the pen offa them before they could do anything. You’re welcome by the way.” 

Alfred was beaming, his smile wide and bright. Arthur glanced behind them, hearing the chatter of children but not finding any source. 

“They’ll be a while getting up that hill.” Alfred answered, noticing where Arthur was looking. “ Sir asked them to help him carry the camping shit up, I ran away before he noticed me. I’d rather sleep up in a tree, it’d be more true to nature wouldn’t it?”

“Surprised you even know what a tree is, to be honest.” 

“I read it somewhere once, I think.”

Arthur smiled, and took Alfred’s hand, stopping him from walking back anymore. And taking a large step forward, leant his head towards the others. Alfred met their lips together shortly after. The kiss was made all the more better with the safety of the sun gleaming behind them contrasting the danger of the rest of the geography class catching up to them. Arthur felt the happiest he had in a long time, till the noise of chatter behind them became louder, and Alfred pulled away suddenly. He had always been far more wary than Arthur, who really rather wished they were caught. It’d make the whole coming out thing a lot quicker, he supposed. Alfred took a step backwards, but then changed his mind, moving to stand beside Arthur, nudging him with his elbow. “Save it for the night, huh? Two to a tent, boy-boy and girl-girl. They’re basically setting it all up for us.” 

Arthur sent him a little smirk. They acted as though they were going to do anything more than just kissing. In reality, they had no idea what anything else was. Alfred said touching felt too gay. Arthur thought that was fair enough, he didn’t want to point out that kissing was quite gay as well, just incase Alfred agreed with him and didn’t want to do it anymore. He doubted that would happen, the boy seemed to like it more than he did, but, just in case. Arthur pressed his hand to the small of Alfred’s back, and gave him a shove forward, just as a hand slapped on his own shoulder.  
“Careful on Alfred, Art. He saved your arse back on the coach. Or your dignity or whatever.” 

“Yeaaaah. About that. I can’t believe you’d choose colonel chicken whatever over Hitler, really.” Arthur answered, glancing back at whoever it was. William, the tubby blonde boy from his form.

“I know. But we thought you’d think it was Charlie Chaplin or something old fashioned like that and show it off to Sir, didn’t we.” 

Alfred laughed loudly. “Art couldn’t pull off a hitler anyway. I doubt he could even raise his arm that high.” Alfred then demonstrated, and clicked his heels together, “Sieg fucking heil, Arty.” He flashed him a lopsided grin.

“Alfred! What the hell are you doing?” The boys turned around, to see their poor old teacher clambering to the precipice of the hill, and dropping a bag heavily onto the ground, rubbing his shoulder. The children behind him laughed quietly. 

“Uhh, Charlie Chaplin, Sir.” He answered, dropping his arm to his side quickly, shuffling on his boots.

His classmates laughed again, more arriving to the top of the hill, till the horizon looked like the bobbing heads of children and one balding middle aged man. 

“Right. Well, stop doing it and come and help me with some of this equipment.”

“Sir, I still think the tree idea was a good one,” Alfred groaned. Even so, he began to trudge towards his teacher, slowly and steadily as though the longer he waited the lighter the bag might become. 

“You too, Arthur. Come on.” 

“Siiiiiiiir, please. I can’t even carry a pint of milk sometimes, look at me!” Arthur held his skinny arms out in proof, they weren’t so small as so his elbows jutted out at an angle, but there was the definite and obvious void of muscle mass. Arthur wasn’t underweight by any means, but he definitely had absolutely no idea where his muscles were meant to be, he’d tried press ups and sit ups every morning for a month or so to see if he even had any. He had come to the conclusion that he in fact did not. Alfred had offered to help train him a bit, but Arthur had gotten self conscious about it, and told Alfred it wasn’t possible, and he had been training for years now without results. He wasn’t sure if Alfred believed him or not, but he didn’t seem too bothered by it, just telling him he was probably ‘half-assing’ it like he usually does with exercise and saying the ‘offer was still standing’. Then they’d made out a bit in his bedroom and forgotten all about it, leaving Arthur as weak and scrawny as he always was. 

Sir rolled his eyes, and ordered Arthur over again, pointing to a small green rucksack he had thrown on the floor. “That one’s only got the matches and Smash in, and maybe a couple pots. You’ll be able to lift those, missus.” 

Arthur frowned, doing as he was told. They began walking again. Alfred caught up to him like before, a large and heavy looking rucksack strapped to his back.  
“Sir always calls you something girly.” He commented, after Arthur didn’t start speaking. He was in a bad mood now. 

“So what?”

“Do you think you’re quite girly?”

Arthur shrugged. “Do you?”

“Think you are?”

“Yeah.” 

“Um.”

Arthur smiled a little, and then chose to frown again. 

“You really think I’m girly?”

“No! No. But you ain’t manly manly though, are you?”

Arthur pursed his lips, shifting the little rucksack higher up on his back. “You’d just rather I’m girly. It’s not so gay then.” Arthur sent an elbow into his ribs.

“Ow! Shh! Nah, c’mon. It ain’t that. I mean, you asked. I answered.”

Arthur was silent for a moment. They took their first steps into the forest, mud squelched under foot, and the glow in the sky suddenly turned to a cold and curtain-like shadow. “You think it’d be cool if I was a girl and you were still a boy? D’you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Yeah I get you! That’d be funny, huh? I bet there’d be a war or something and I’d be sent off, and you’d be stuck at home with our bratty child grieving over me, saving all my letters and all that.” 

“Using them to mop up my tears as I wept alone without you?”

“Totally.”

“Never, I’d have a street party as soon as you’d leave, mate.” 

“Caw’moooon.”

“Literally Alfred. Me and little Timmy would take the money, change the locks on the house and mummy would get a new surname. Buh bye.”

Alfred kicked him softly in the ankle, but having no buffer but skin, Arthur yelped and almost went over. “For fucks sake, man! That bloody hurt.”

“I know you’d miss me.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Come on, Arthur. You would miss me, wouldn’t you.”

“A little bit.”

“A lot.”

“That the opposite to what I said.”

“I’d miss you a lot. If you went missing or something, I miss you a big ol’ lot, dude.”

Arthur pulled the soles of his boots out of the mud with a pop, landing them onto wet grass. Walking suddenly became a lot smoother, and he fastened his pace. “I’d miss you too.” He said it quieter. “And, let’s face it, you’re way more likely to be the one going missing. A stranger would offer you sweets from a windowless van and you’d jump in and offer to help him colour coordinate them or something.” 

Arthur heard Alfred laugh from behind him. 

“I ain’t that stupid.”

“Well.”

 

********

They must have walked at least an hour before Sir finally told them they could put their things down for a bit before he’d show them how to start setting up. Most of the group had grown quiet by now, out of energy, hungry, tired, cold and muddy. The sun was probably gone now, though they wouldn’t have been able to tell through the thick foliage anyway. It felt quite surreal, to be out so late with one’s geography class, to not be able to jump into their beds and fall asleep, to have to start a fire in order to have dinner. It was oddly refreshing, and at the same time a tiring thought. Arthur didn’t care however, the excitement of being so close to what Alfred and he had planned… he just wanted to set up their tents quickly and leave dinner out of it, as much as his stomach grumbled, teenage boy hormones trumped teenage boy hunger. 

As soon as everyone was sitting down, chatter started to rouse up again. Arthur got chatting with Alfred and a new girl, Arthur thought she might be German, but he wasn’t quite sure. She had never much been clear about it. Sir showed them how to start their fires, they weren’t a wooden stick pile like Arthur thought they might be, instead something like a Bunsen burner in a metal cage that Alfred kept trying to pick up and burning his fingers on. 

“Fuck man! They should have a warning sign or some shit!”

“I think the blazing fire underneath is meant to be the warning sign.”

The new girl giggled. 

“No but, I didn’t think the actual thing would be hot! Just the fire.”

“It’s called natural selection, mate.” 

“What is?”

“Nevermind. Pass me the water jug, will you? I don’t think I put enough of it in for all of us.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to eat.” The girl said, peering down at the three packets of Smash on her lap. “I hate this stuff. I really do.” 

“I know right. But you must be starving!” Arthur glanced her. She was tiny. He hadn’t noticed before.

Alfred shoved the water jug into Arthur’s lap, and then thrust into his pocket, pulling out a chunky mobile phone. He flipped it open, and clicked the middle button. It shone on, and a picture of some delicious looking bbq ribs and chips came up. 

“This is what I do. I look at a picture of nice food while I eat this sad stuff, and imagine it’s the nice stuff. I did on D of E as well.”

Arthur shuddered.

“I fucking hated D of E.”

“What’s D of E?” She asked, scorching forward a bit. 

“Duke of Edinburgh award thing. You go walking over fields and stuff for about 7 hours or day for two days. And that’s the easiest one.” Alfred answered, shutting his phone away and slipping it back into his pocket before Sir saw. 

“It’s the most pointless thing. But it helps with college and university and stuff. You have to do some volunteering and stuff like that as well.” Arthur added.

“Oh, I think I know what you might mean. What volunteering did you do?” 

Alfred answered her quickly, his eyes brightening. “I helped out at the RSPCA. Animals are the darn cutest things, I swear.” He pulled his knees up to his chest. “You can’t believe anyone would want to hurt them, could you?” 

“No. Poor things.” She answered. “What did you get to do there?”

“They mostly just taught me about the animals, really. I’m basically a wildlife expert now. Oh, and they let me play with a few lonely dogs and cats as well, that was my payment.”

Arthur glugged some more water into the pot, watching as it started to simmer slowly, rolling his eyes. “Alfred looks tough, but he’s a sap.” 

She giggled. “I like a sap. It’s cute.” 

Arthur took a side glance as her, as he stirred the water around. She was on her knees, leaning on a backpack close to Alfred, her arm lulled over it, her hand falling near his thigh, her head was resting on her forearm. 

“Hey, Alfred. Can I see that picture on your mobile phone? I don’t have one.” She asked, looking up at him.

“Oh, sure thing sista.” He reached in his pocket again, and pulled it out, handing it to her. 

“Oh, wow, it has a keypad!” She leant her head into it, squinting at it. 

Arthur slid closer to them, she was getting nearer and nearer to Alfred by the minute.

“Oh, yeah, cool huh? It lights up as well.”

“Whats it for?”

“Um, just for naming contacts really. Oh, and you can email- Uhh, text with it, but I never really do that. The only person I could probably text is Arthur, and we prefer to call, really. Or see each other in person.” Alfred glanced over at Arthur, who was trying his best on sneaking into the conversation and keeping the water from boiling over simultaneously. 

She giggled, it seemed to be the only physical trait of any emotion she may have had “That seems like such a waste! I’m getting a mobile phone soon, maybe you could text me?”

“Umm-“

“Hey, Lilli, could you maybe help me open one of these packets? It’s best if we do it fast.” Arthur interjected, glancing for less than a second at Alfred. 

“Oh. Okay.” She had one last look at Alfreds phone, smiling at him before clicking it shut and handing it back. He pocketed it, and turned around, back to facing the makeshift hob. Arthur handed them both a packet of smash. It looked like salted talcum powder, and then wet salted talcum powder when the boiling water was poured into it. Arthur and Lilli almost gagged. 

“Alfred. Get that damn picture out again.” 

*******

 

Once dinner was over and the tents were erected (it took Arthur much longer than the others, because he had Alfred to deal with, and Alfred wouldn’t stop talking about sleeping in the trees instead and refused to help.) and once everything was cleared away, Sir got everyone to settle down so he could choose partners. Boy-boy, girl-girl, that’s what Alfred had said, right? 

“So, I think one of the boys is going to have to go with a girl tonight. Any volunteers?”

Almost every boy put his hand up, except for maybe three, Alfred and Arthur included.  
“That was a stupid question, wasn’t it? I’ll decide. It’ll have to be someone sensible.”

“Go with Arthur Sir, he’s gay.” Francis called, and shot Arthur a little grin. Alfred glanced over at him, warily. But Francis was only joking, Arthur knew, so he flashed his middle finger.

The teacher frowned to the area behind him. “Arthur’s not gay, Francis. You’re not gay, are you Arthur?”

Arthur quick put his finger down. “Um.” He frowned. And suddenly he didn’t feel as confident as he usually did. “No.” His good mood was suddenly gone again. Alfred bit his lip.

“Good. Let’s start.” The teacher grabbed a pen from his pocket, and out with it came a small note pad, he flicked it open to the last few back pages and began to scribble.

“Nick and George.” “Elizabeta and Sarah.” “Hannah and Julia.” “Francis and Phil.” “Esther and Liv.” “Fiona and Siobhan.” “Julia and Nikki” “Alfred and-“ 

“Sir, i wanna go with Arthur.”

The teacher sighed. 

“Alfred and Will.” 

“Sir-!” 

“Alfred. And. Will.”

“Ayyyyyyy Alfie.” 

Arthur glanced around. There was only him and Lilli, the new maybe-German girl left. He smiled half-heartedly at her. “And Arthur, you’re with Lilli because you’re sensible. Not because of the little comment earlier.” Sir gave him a little smile, but reminded of the moment before, Arthur couldn’t quite return it.  
“Right, you have 10 minutes to talk before bed. I’m exhausted.” Sir called.

Everybody instantly formed back into little groups. Will dawdled along over to Alfred, Arthur and Lilli.  
“Will, would you be a lad and take Lilli instead of me-“

“No!” Lilli said, and then quieter and less urgent. “I mean… I don’t know you very much Will, I only really know a couple of the girls, and these two,” She beckoned at Arthur and Alfred, who were frowning at no one in particular. None of this was going to plan, and suddenly the isolation and darkness of the forest became something to dread, instead of to want. 

Arthur hesitated. “I can understand that. I don’t think any of the girls would want to share a tent with Will to be honest.” 

“Fuck you, Arthur.”

But Lilli looked as though she agreed wholeheartedly. Will wasn’t exactly a prime specimen, and his attitude didn’t really fill in any holes his looks and physique might leave open. He was always quite grabby and hormonal, and painfully unaware of how unattractive it all came off as. 

“But Art…” Alfred stopped. 

“We’ll think of something, Al. It’s alright.” 

“If you say so.”

“Al, we’re gonna have loads of fun. D’you know any cool American games?” Will jabbed him, but Alfred didn’t smile like he does when Arthur does it.

“Um, not really.” 

“That’s okay. We can play Mercy.”

“Uh, what’s Mercy?” 

“We push each others hands back as much as we can till one of us says Mercy. Whoever says it loses. My cousin broke my wrist once. ‘Cos I’m not a pussy.” Will began to drag Alfred off, who looked behind himself with such a need in his eyes. Arthur could only offer him a grimace and a shrug as condolence. He looked over at Lilli, who was holding in a little laugh beside him, her hand covering her mouth with a smile in her (slightly bloodshot) eyes.

“You tired?” He asked her. She nodded, and as if on cue began to yawn.

“Let’s pop off to bed then.” 

“Poor Alfred.” She commented, on their trip back to Alfred and Arthur’s poorly put up tent. 

“I know, right?”

 

******

Once Arthur was sure Lilli was deep asleep, he slipped out of his sleeping bag carefully, and unzipped his tent slowly. When she didn’t flinch, he got out and traipsed over to what he hoped was Alfred’s tent. Damn did he hope this was the right tent. He unzipped it just enough to peek inside, it wasn’t Alfreds tent. Two girls,Elizabeta and Sarah, were sleeping balled up inside. Arthur thought being seen peeking into their tent at night would do wonders to kill his gay rumour, but he might get suspended all the same. So he zipped them back up quietly and took a look around at all the similar tents. Fuck. Knowing his luck, he’d check all of them in vain, get accused of being a nonce and then find Alfred asleep on a fucking vine somewhere deep in the forest. He was really at a loss here, and the cold and the deafening darkness of the forest was beginning to get to him. He wasn’t really one to be scared of the dark, but that was the dark in his nice, warm and safe bedroom. This was dark out in the endless, cold and isolated Scottish forest, and if he was honest, he’d admit it scared the living fuck out of him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, he’d not wanted to use it during this trip, but using it for light wasn’t the same thing as actually using it, was it? He shone it out before him, and almost screamed as a face glowed back in response.

“Hey! It’s okay! It’s me, Alfred!” It replied, and suddenly the face was Alfred’s. Alfred’s pretty, pretty face with his ever-so-kind smile. Arthur took the hand that was clutching at his chest, and reach it out to touch Alfred’s cheek. His skin was soft and smooth and absolutely freezing. “Aw, fuck. That was scary.”

“Sorry.”

They were both whispering, Arthur glanced around at the tents surrounding them, and the darkness beyond that, and dropped his hand onto the other boys, holding it tightly and close to him.

“I’m guessing we had the same idea?” He asked, as Arthur pushed his phone away.

“Sneak off somewhere private to snog instead of sleeping?”

“Basically, ‘scept i don’t like the word snog. It sounds like something an animal would do.”

“Maybe we are animals, walking around this forest at night like we know where we’re going.” Arthur began to lead him away, somewhere darker, somewhere alone. 

“We’re doing something awfully human, though.” 

“What’s that?” Arthur let go of Alfred hands, travelling up his arm to his bicep, and giving it a squeeze. It was firm and large, even up his jumper and fuck why couldn’t Arthur just find somewhere private? 

“Kissing. Animals don’t do that, do they?”

Arthur shrugged, spotting a little niche of trees glowing like a fence under the moonlight. Perfect. “We could… we could do a little more than kissing?” 

“Aw man, I don’t… I don’t know. I just…”

“I’m sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” 

“No. No, it’s alright. It’s me. I guess I’m just nervous. I always want to do more, don’t get me wrong… I don’t know, man. It’s awkward to talk about.”

They reached the trees, and Arthur pulled Alfred to the nearest one, and leant himself onto him. “It’s okay. We’ll just snog.”

“Make out.”

“Make out, sure.” 

Alfred put a hand round Arthur’s waist, not applying any force, just keeping him close. And then their lips met. At first, they did just kiss, softly and sweetly, but then the bubble of excitement that had been building its way inside of arthur grew and grew, with the feeling of Alfred’s lips against his, his big hand pressed against his back, and Arthur deepened the kiss, opening their mouths and feeling the soft, wet inside of their lips, Arthur was almost biting at Alfreds top lip, his eagerness to get closer to him, feel him and touch him was growing stronger. A mixture of his dreams during his nap on the coach, his thoughts and fantasies as he lie awake waiting for Lilli to fall asleep and finally his boiling disappointment at himself for so easily denying his one chance to tell everyone who and what he fucking was, all came clashing and slamming into each other all at once. And he’d wanted Alfred so bad. Just to touch him somewhere other than his back for once. He wanted to feel close, feel hot and together. So he pushed his waist into Alfreds, and dug a hand between his legs, at first only cupping whatever he found down there, but then he began to massage. Alfred made a noise, that vibrated throughout Arthur’s mouth and made him feel amazing. Then Alfred pulled away, from their kiss, and with their lips still practically touching whispered somewhat breathlessly

“Arthur man, dude. No one's ever really touched there, dude. Careful.” His eyes were wide, and peering into Arthur’s.

Arthur laughed quietly. “Do you, uh...Want me to stop?”

“I don’t know… I don’t…” he kissed him again, sweet and short and decision like. “No. No, don’t. We’re sixteen now, sixteen year olds are meant to do this sort of stuff, aren’t they?”

“Mm, I don’t know. I guess so, that law’s there for a reason.”

“What law?”

“The consent one. When we’re sixteen we’re allowed- you know what? Never mind. Don’t think about laws, they’re boring. Can I feel you up or not?” Arthur squeezed him.

“Aughh… yeah. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a boner faster than I just did right then.”

“Uck, Alfred.”

“Whaaat? Just saying. I’m grateful.” 

“Yeah… you’re not great with words. Show me instead, Al.”

And then the thought of what he was holding in his hand, what it was and the fact that he had caused it made Arthur feel like butterflies inside, and he couldn’t stop himself from kissing Alfred again, hard and sloppy and leaning his chin into it. Alfred re-engaged with him, clashing their teeth together with a little groan, before Arthur dropped his mouth down to the boys jawline, and then his neck. He felt little odd patches of stubble that were beginning to grow in and were scratching his lips, and he felt oddly happy about it. Alfred was all grown up, and Alfred was all his. This tall, all-American darling. The handsome, well-built and generous Alfred. The boy all the girls wanted, all the boys wanted to be. Had only wanted him. wanted Arthur. In this moment, Arthur couldn’t have been happier. 

Through a small little grunt, with his mouth now free, Alfred began to speak, “Hey, Art? D’you know bout earlier? With Sir?” His voice was timid, but he was no longer whispering. 

Arthur didn’t reply, too busy grazing further down the boys neck. 

“Well… I was just thinking… maybe, um, I should tell people that I, um, like… dudes.”  
Alfred was very off about the subject for someone who was currently on the verge of getting off from another boy’s mouth on his neck and hand on his groin. 

Arthur pulled away from him, and pulled both his hands up to breathe warm air onto them. He didn’t want to answer this halfheartedly. Arthur felt Alfred’s erection lodge itself wonkily into his thigh, and he had a little quiet laugh, but looking up at Alfred who was frowning softly, a tint of fear glowing in his eyes, Arthur reached up and ran a cold hand through his hair and sighed through his nose.

“D’you want to?”

“I don’t know… but it feels like we have a dirty secret, y’know, when we do things like this. And I don’t want to feel like that, I just want to enjoy it like I do, without those dumbass worries and thoughts and stuff.”

“Then don’t think about that.”

“It ain’t that easy, man.” 

“I know. That was weird of me to say. But, I mean, I don’t really know what else to suggest.”

Alfred didn’t reply.

“Don’t forget I’m going through the same sort of thing as you, I’m just as clueless.” And just as horny he wanted to add. Arthur hated conversations like these.

 

“I hate conversations like these, Al, could we maybe talk about it another time?” Arthur really hated conversations like these. The excitement of the deed was starting to wear out.

“Yeah… sorry. Sure.” Alfred gave him a little smile.

“We won’t stay much longer.” Arthur eyed down at Alfreds little uncomfortable condition, and took a sharp breath in.

“Hey, Al? You wanna… you wanna forget all those nagging thoughts for a bit?” He asked, erring on the side of caution with his tone. 

“Uh, yeah. Basically- but I still wanna-“

“D’you mind if I do something weird?”

“Huh?”

“D’you know what a blowie is?”

Alfred went rigid beneath him.

“A… a blow job?”

“Yeah. You know?”

“Yeah…”

“D’you want one or something? I could… I mean, I don’t mind. I’ve never done one before, but I think I know how.” Arthur’s words were coming out a little fast for the confident sex mentor he wanted to come off as.

But Alfred was staring at him like he was some sort of wise king and devil all at once. He bit his lip, and wordlessly gave a little nod.

“You sure?”

“Fuck, Art. Just thinking ‘bout it is… go on. Please.”

Arthur gave him a short kiss, before carefully dropping to his knees, trying to avoid any sharp twigs or stones that might want to sabotage him. He was exactly head height with what had been pressing into his thigh earlier, and he gulped. This was scarier than those pictures and videos made it look. But he’d committed to it now, and somewhere still he knew he wanted it. But he was clueless. This thing was large and pointing straight at him, like it was accusing him of not knowing what to do. Shut up, stupid fucking boner. Come on, it’s easy. At Least start with maybe pulling his trousers down… yeah. Yeah.  
Alfred let out a cool breath as Arthur began to entangle his fingers in his button and zipper. This was fine… this was-

A twig snapped to the right of them.

At first, Arthur didn’t even think of it as anything out of the ordinary, he was so focused one what he was about to do, that it was only when Alfred kneed him in the chest to push him back, that he noticed anything was wrong.

“Oh shit.”

“Fuck.”

Will was standing 4 feet away from them, his mouth dropped and his eyes bulging. He looked as though he wanted to speak, and Arthur watch his lips open and close from his little muddy ditch that he had been pushed into. 

Alfred was fiddling with his zipper, curses escaping his mouth like a hiss as he got stuck and stuck again. 

“I’m…” Will took a step back.

“I didn’t see anything!” He stumbled further away, till his back hit a tree.

“Will! Will! It’s not what it looks like!” Arthur began, maneuvering to his knees, and then jumping to his feet a bit slippery. “Will please! It’s not what it looks like!” He began to walk towards the boy, careful, as though approaching a stray cat. His arms were out in a half surrender. “Please, Will. You can’t tell anyone.”

Arthur breathed calmly. As the boy nodded slowly, back still pressed firmly against the tree. “Please.” Arthur begged one last time. Will took a shuddering breath, and then leaning his cheek against the tree yelled “Sir!”

Alfred whimpered. 

“Will, I’m begging you! Please, Please! For fucks sake just please!” 

“Sir!”

“If you say Sir again I’m gonna break your fucking nose.”

And he began to run. Awkwardly avoiding vines and broken branches that littered the floor, and Arthur took off instantly behind him, easily catching up to him and grabbing his arm- but then he tripped, his ankle caught beneath a vine or root and he spiralled over, he hit his palms hard on the floor and he was sure his knee cracked at some point, but he felt no pain. Only panic. Will sprinted harder, as fast as his fat little body would go. Sir still belching loudly out from him, like a portable and whiny little siren. 

“Siiiiiir-“

“What the hell do you boys think you’re doing out here?! It’s 1 in the morning! Get back to your tents!”

Arthur’s stomach dropped, and he didn’t even bother to get off the ground. Sir was obviously flaming, his voice sparse and airy. A few tents zipped open behind him, and like totem poles, heads one by one stuck out of their openings. 

“Sir! Sir! I’m… I saw… Alfred and Arthur Sir…”

“What are you on about William?”

“They were… he was…”

“It was nothing Sir,” Arthur interjected, finding the strength in himself to stand up. “Nothing. Wills just overreacting.” But his voice wasn’t as calm as he had tried to make it, he heard the shake in it, the unstableness in his tone. 

“What happened?”

Sir asked. He asked Will. Why did he ask Will? Will was a liar. Everyone knew that. Will lied. Will lies all the time. 

“Alfred and Arthur. Arthur was… was on his knees and he was… doing the, Sir, he was doing… about to do the thing.” He said the word quietly, as though he was describing the actual act. 

The teacher frowned, but not in confusion. He knew exactly what Will was talking about. Of course he did. And Arthur couldn’t even deny it, not when he was staring so hard at him. He was about to do the thing. And this was the first time he felt disgusted with it. He was disgusting. That was disgusting. 

“Where’s Alfred?” Sir was talking to Arthur now, but the boy couldn’t manage an answer. 

“Alfred.” He snapped, louder this time. “Where is he?”

“Um… back… back over there.” Arthur could hardly manage his voice. It felt as though his throat had been rubbed raw by the cold and the fear, both choking and scratching him simultaneously. 

“Where’s back over there?”

“In that… the little gathering of trees. Just there.” Arthur raised a weak hand and pointed. “Just there.”

“I’m going to go and fetch him. You two boys stay right here. Not a move, hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Arthur?”

“...Okay.” 

“We’ll talk about all the rest of it when I’m back.”

Arthur could have cried.  
“Okay.” 

He felt a buzz in his pocket. His phone, no doubt. He didn’t want to touch the fucking thing. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and die right there and then. He turned to Will, who was keeping a fair distance from him.

“I hope you know I’ve never hated someone more than you.”

“I’m…”

“Get lost and die in a fucking black hole, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya!
> 
> This is my first work on AO3 so I’m sorry if the formatting is a little bit off!  
> Thank ya so much for reading and I hope you come back for future chapters! Things are boutta get spicaye c;


	2. 1999

Arthur wouldn’t call himself an overtly emotional person. When his first pet fish died - a little goldie called George - he was crushed on the inside. But could barely spare the thing a tear as it swirled and dunked around in the toilet bowl till it had disappeared, never to be seen again. When his mum had sat him and his two brothers down with his first cup of tea and a Bourbon biscuit and told him that ‘she and daddy were going to be apart for a while’, he had just picked up his biscuit and dunked it, even though the fear he had felt made him want to crumble it between his fingers. When Alfred’s parents had come to him, three months after Alfred had disappeared, and given him a baked apple pie, telling him they were moving back to America and that ‘we should keep in touch. Maybe you could even come over and visit.’   
Yet Arthur knew he never could, and the thought of losing the last thing he had of Alfred so close to his actual disappearance… well, it had made him cry. But only slightly, so few tears that a tissue was hardly needed to mop them up. Arthur thought this was because he was a sensible person, a coping person. He could get through anything, because that was what all his life was, getting through things and coming out stronger on the other side. 

But when Arthur’s phone had buzzed, and light flashed through its closed hinges at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning in March 1999, Arthur was suddenly none of the things he thought he was. He was not sensible, because at first he had wanted to throw the phone at the wall and watch it smash. He was not a coping person, because he did not cope well when it felt as though his heart was going to swell and explode in his chest, and his hands grew oddly cold and shaky, and the phone rattled in his fingers as he struggled to read the wriggling words. And he wasn’t as sure as he always was that he could go through with this. And get through this. 

 

_01.03.1998  
From: Alfie ;)_ __

_Hey Art, I tried calling but it just rang through. I don’t know where I am haha. Silly me. If Sir ain’t too angry, could you maybe call me back? It’s a bit dark :P_

_ Sent: 01:15 _

Arthur took a sharp breath in. He really couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was as though he was hearing the little ding of a new text ring through to someone else’s ears. Someone who wasn’t there. Someone who didn’t know and didn’t care. Had he tried calling? If it had rung through it would have meant Arthur must have ignored the call. But he didn’t remember a call. Surely he would have picked it up, he was by his phone that whole night. It was panic. Pure panic. Of course he would have picked it… _He felt a buzz in his pocket. His phone, no doubt. He didn’t want to touch the fucking thing…_  
He took a deep swallow, and felt an ethereal swell of guilt. So heavy it made his arms weak, and he used his lap to help hold the phone steady. His mouth was dry and he was suddenly so thirsty, but he kept on reading. Each new text was a mystery, as they were hidden till he decided they shouldn’t be and clicked the little glowing down arrow on his keyboard. He could stop reading whenever he wanted. Whenever. But not right now.

**Click**

_01.03.1998  
From: Alfie ;)_ __

_Arthur???_

_ Sent: 01:32 _

**Click**

_01.03.1998  
From: Alfie ;)_ __

_Hello????? I don’t know if these are going through. Phone me!!!_

_ Sent: 01:34 _

**Click**

_01.03.1998  
From: Alfie ;)_ __

_Arthur?? I’ve tried calling everyone. I don’t think there’s signal. It doesn’t even ring anymore. I’m really fucking scared. If you see this, I don’t know. I’ll try and find a way back or something._

_ Sent: 02:56 _

Arthur took another deep breath in, he hadn't even realised he was holding it. Nor did he realise he was crying till his eyes started burning and the white words on the screen seemed to all merge into each other in an artwork of his worst fears. He was frightened, for lack of another word, he was utterly frightened. As though he was experiencing the moments with Alfred. Each click downwards was another memory from that horrible, horrible night. Another reminder of the reality he was now living in. The one where the only constant happiness of his life had ended almost exactly a year ago. His best friend, someone he loved - because it was love, wasn’t it. Not some pitiful hormonal lust, it was love - and the only person he felt he could ever truly be himself with, had disappeared. And with it, so had the true Arthur. From that night on, he had been too much himself as well as just a shell of what he used to be. It wasn’t him. And it never would be.   
Fuck, he missed Alfred. So much. He loved that fucking boy.   
He clicked his phone shut, then opened it again, silenced it, and shut it again. He wiped his face clear of any physical emotion that may have escaped onto it, and got up and dressed. Damn, was he thirsty. On his trip downstairs, which was a slightly groggier walk down than usual, he had thought of throwing his phone over the very top of the banister and letting it smash. But he didn’t, of course. Of course. 

He continued down, and as he reached the last step, he could hear his mother in the kitchen with pots and pans clanging, toasters pinging and kettles bubbling. And he smiled a little. He often forgot how much he cared for his family, and how much they cared for him. 

“Morning.” He greeted. Only one of his brothers was at the table this morning, his mum was buttering almost burnt toast with yellow margarine, whisking some eggs on the hob at the same time. She smiled at him as he walked in. “Morning, sweetheart. How did you sleep?”

“Alright. Had another one of those nightmares again,” he shrugged, as though it didn’t matter. But with the whole event today, the nightmare felt realer than ever. His mum flashed him a little frown, but didn’t say anything. There was nothing that hadn’t been said already. He placed his phone carefully on the table next to his plate, opposite from his brother, Alistair. It was always nice to have Alistair back home. The man, because he was a man at 22 now, had found good work up in Scotland, and in his early days had rarely, if ever, visited back home. But now whatever he was doing (Arthur could never remember, it was all awfully complicated, something to do with law and police things.) was taking off, and could work perfectly fine without him there at every moment. So he would come home for a week every two months or so. They would usually all go out, to somewhere nice in London. Arthur, regarding the earlier months of this year, hadn’t really engaged with these outings. They would usually just remind him of the trips he used to take with Alfred, and the whole thing would hurt too much for him to enjoy it. Today was going to be the first one in 8 months that Arthur was looking forward to. _Was going to be._ Still, he would try and enjoy it. 

 

“A really bad one this time, then? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Alistair commented, watching Arthur softly as the boy scrapped out his chair and sat down. 

“Not really, it just got me thinking.” He glanced at his phone. “Mum, could I have a cuppa please?”

“Kettles boiled, love.” 

Alistair chuckled. “He might burn himself, mum. He’s only seventeen, remember.”

“Shut up.” 

“Arthur, no swearing till at least past 10 in the morning.” His mum gave him a little pat on the shoulder. 

“Past ten in the morning and this house becomes an episode of Jeremy Kyle.”

“Alistair!”

“I didn’t swear though, mum.”

“If the neighbours hear!”

“Hear what?”

“That we watch Jeremy Kyle… This is a nice neighbourhood, Alistair.” 

 

Arthur laughed, and with the action spilt some boiling water on his hand and swore. 

 

“Told you.” Alistair was quick to jump in. 

“Well, you’re a knobhead.”

“Arthur! Really, boys.”

“I don’t know why that was plural, mum, Arthur swore not me.”

“You provoked him.”

“The boiling water that he just spilt on himself provoked him.”

Their mother shrugged. “I have no words. Arthur just make the bloody tea.”

“Mum!” They both chided. 

“It’s not even ten yet! what will the neighbours think?” Alistair took his cup of tea from Arthur with a nod. 

 

His mum held her head in her hands as she chuckled, so Arthur placed her drink on the coaster beside her. A smile on his face. He went and sat back down next to his phone. Then he stood up quickly and went to fetch the bowl of scrambled eggs and buttered toast rack, placing them in the middle of the table. “Salt anyone?”

 

“Yes please Arthur,” his mother was already gliding through the toast with her fingers, assessing them like envelopes, before picking the lightest coloured one she could find. Arthur placed the salt and pepper shakers down next to the eggs, and then pulled his chair slightly away from his phone as he sat down. He felt no hunger at all. He sipped as his tea, hands tense against the burning china cup. His palms ached and his mouth got no wetter with each mouthful. His phone buzzed, and he almost dropped the mug.

“Ay, what's the matter with you today, Arthur? Bit clumsy aren’t we?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. Just tired.” 

But his mother still bit her lip.

“Arthur… If you want to…”

“I’m fine, mum.” 

 

She reached over the table and gave his shoulder a short rub. “I’m sure you are.” But her smile wasn’t in it. When she settled back, and took a hold of her piece of least-burnt toast, Alistair cleared his throat loudly.

 

“Is nobody gonna ask where we’re going today, then?”

Arthur sat back in his seat and furrowed his brow. “Thought you said the V&A museum yesterday?”

“Yeah, Well, that was a yesterday thought. Is anyone gonna ask about today?” 

“Are we going to the V&A museum?” His mother asked, her tone inquisitive. Arthur was indifferent to where they went, today he was anyway, he didn’t even know if he was going to go.

“Nope. We’re doing something special today.”

“Mm? What’s that then?”

 

Alistair answered while chewing on a mouthful of toast. “You two are gonna come up to Scotland with me, and see my workplace!”

Arthur groaned, and then covered the noise up by taking a sip of tea. 

 

“Come on, Artieeeeeee. It’ll be fun!”

“Don’t lie to your younger brother, Ali.”

“You too, mum?! You’re both the worst. This’ll be fun. This is a little peek into who I am now! Isn’t that interesting?”

“You say as though you’ve changed at all.” Arthur said, finally deciding that maybe he should listen to the grumbles of his stomach, and started eyeing the bowl of scrambled egg. It looked so cloudy and white and appetising, Arthur wondered if he really deserved any. _He felt a buzz in his pocket. His phone, no doubt. He didn’t want to touch the fucking thing._ He shook his head, trying to pay as little attention to the thought as he could. He took a helping of scrambled egg.

“I most definitely have changed, Art.”

“I said no lying, Alistair.”

“Mum! Oh, you know what, you’re uninvited.”

“What are you going to wear to the V&A museum, Arthur?”

“Mother! No. Okay. No. You’re coming with me, to Scotland, to stay the night and see where I work. It’ll be fun. A proper holiday. I thought it’d be nice seeing as Art is on half term and all.” 

“I’m on half term?”

“Oh yes. I forgot to mention it to you dear.”

“How long?”

“Just the normal, just a week.”

 

Arthur would have usually laughed at this, felt happy. But he was crushed. So he didn’t even have school starting up as an escape. Just him and this fucking phone, these fucking nightmares and text messages, unless… “I wanna come to Scotland.” 

 

“Ayyyyy, that’s the spirit! Come on mum, even Arthur wants to, and he hates doing absolutely everything!”

“Not everything, you knob.” Arthur mumbled into his forkful of eggs. 

“I don’t know… you know I’m frightfully interested in what you do, Ali. But it’s just… well Scotland isn’t exactly a prime holiday location, is it?”

“Weather won’t be the best, sure, but we’re Londoners, we can take a little drizzle, can’t we?”

“A little drizzle in Scotland is light hail.”

“Muuuuum. Please. It’ll be bundles of fun. We can even visit a museum up there. You love museums.”

“There’s museum I can visit here.”

“But not the museums they have up there.”

 

His mother sighed with a little smile, looking over at Arthur with raised eyebrows. “You really want to go?”

“Enough.”

 

Alistair deflated with a dramatic groan. “Come on!”

“Alright! Alright. I suppose it sounds alright. I’ll probably enjoy it once we’re up there.”

“Woo! The Kirkland gang is up and running!”

“Ready to paint the Scottish streets red!”

His mum shook her head, “We’re not going to be painting any Scottish streets red, Arthur.”

“Ready to imagine we are going to paint the Scottish streets red!”

“Cheers to that!” Alistair replied, holding his empty tea cup out in front of him, only Arthur responded, clinging the rims of their cups together. “Cheers, wank-stain.”

“Mind the china! You’ll chip it if you’re not careful!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me for round 2!   
> Sorry this chapter is quite short, i don't really have a reason - it just is lmao 
> 
> I'm going to start trying to update every saturday/sunday, but i meeeean who knows lmao huh?
> 
> p.s; formatting on here is hard isn't it? And there's a lot with the texts so im sorry if it doesnt work out - im just crossing my fingers tbh ahh
> 
>  
> 
> -Lux c:


	3. Death Trap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long one this one, oopsy  
> Thank you for all the wonderful reviews, every single one of them make my day :")
> 
> -Lux

Alistair’s car was an old red thing from the early eighties, it looked charming and fragile from the outside, but Arthur knew all too well from trips to the seaside and the cinema that the little thing was a red and leathery death trap. The breaks took about two minutes to respond to any sort of stimulus, and even if they did work evenly, they would squeal and ache as though complaining about it. A terrible noise, Arthur had always thought it wouldn’t be so bad with the radio on, though. But of course the radio had packed up years ago, and been stolen not long after that, leaving a gaping black hole right next to the steering wheel that seemed as though it’d be nice to house a few spiders or what have you inside. Alistair used it as a makeshift rubbish bin. It always had goodness knows what sort of scraps of plastic with little smears of the food they once held in, and easily enough ripped open sandwich containers that they could probably be compressed down once again to make a recycled sandwich. Arthur’s mother had always begged Alistair to clear it out, but he would make up some vague excuse about global warming, and his festering and sickly little collection would continue to build up, till his mother would end up having to steal Alistair's car keys off of him at night in order to clean the damned thing out.  
These were Arthur’s favourite things about his family. How they could do everything short of slitting the other’s throat and they’d just have a good laugh about it, life was meant to be laughed at. Arthur wasn’t sure how healthy it actually was, but he was glad for it. 

So maybe that’s why when his mother had stopped him at the front door while Alistair was trying to get his junk pile to start, and she placed a hand on his cheek and had told him quietly “If anything’s wrong, you can tell me, okay?” Just maybe that’s why he had laughed, and shook his head. _Nothing's ever wrong, remember mum? Life’s meant to be laughed at._ After that, she had smiled at him, and he had noticed deep in the back of her eyes that she wasn’t actually smiling, and then he had pocketed his phone, which had only stopped buzzing into the very early hours of the morning, and he had pushed past her towards the car. Not pushed, she had moved out the way for him. She was good at that, his mother, knowing when a conversation was over. It had helped a lot a year ago, when she had kept asking and asking him what he was doing with Alfred that fateful night. _It’s important._ She would say. _We have to know everything. Every detail. Think of his parents, how they must feel. But for weeks he was selfish with it. How would you feel, mum? Knowing what I am. What I’ve been doing._ He almost wondered if maybe she would abandon him as well, and he had had nightmares about it. His mum leaving him, that is. Always in the dark, Always cold and lonely. And so for weeks, he was scared, so scared, and he wouldn’t talk about it. Of course his mother believed him over the school. Of course, because she loved him and trusted him. If Arthur said what they were claiming wasn’t true, then to her, it wasn’t true. But it caused problems,so many problems. Police wanted the full story, Alfreds parents were in dread, and Arthur’s mother just wanted to understand. 

He had finally told her, it must have been four weeks after the whole fiasco, three weeks of guilt and anger and total utter grief, but he had finally told her, screamed it at her, after a hideously long questioning session. _It’s true. The whole thing’s fucking true. I was doing every fucking thing they said I was doing. We kissed, We touched, and I was about to do exactly what he said I was. Alright? Are you happy? Have you heard enough?! Or do you want the details._ And he had cried, feeling so, so lonely in that moment. So cold and alone, just as Alfred must feel- have felt, in that forest. That bloody forest. He had wept so hard, everything so totally overwhelming. So painful. 

His mother had told him she loved him. Thanked him. And left the conversation there. Because she was good at that. She had waited for him, to be ready. To find it in himself to come and continue what he had started. And had stood with him through it all, telling Alfred's parents, telling the police, telling the rest of his family about his sexuality. Though Arthur could always tell she found it somewhat uncomfortable, she had nonetheless stood by him. As she obviously intended to do now. But Arthur didn’t want it, not now. This was his own… problem. It must be a problem, things always are for him, somehow. 

But for this week-end, he wanted to forget. And watching his brother slam his head on the dashboard as he worked at the loose pedals by his feet, he really thought he could. 

“You’d think that thing would be illegal on the roads, y’know.” he commented, as Alistair rubbed his head with his palm soothingly. 

“You’d think that because it’s true, probably.”

“I thought you were meant to be a police officer.”

“We’re a bit free’er up in Scotland.”

“‘We’re’?”

“They’re. No, actually, you know what Arthur? I won’t have you taking this heritage away from me. I’ve been living up there for 5 years now, the Scotsmen consider me one of their own. I even own a kilt. Mhm, a kilt. With my initials embroidered on it- your initials too, mind you. You could borrow it if you fancy?”

“I’d love to, but I’ve packed enough kilts to last me the two days, unfortunately.”

“No such thing as ‘enough kilts’” 

“Dreadful things.” His mother added, ascending down the front steps of the house, and gliding as though on wheels towards the car. Despite her graceful gait, she was wearing what could have easily been one of her many dressing gowns, Arthur wasn’t sure. And her shoes were always flat enough and material enough to be or not to be slippers, depending. She was a first class woman stuck in a working class woman body, and she pulled it off quite well. 

“What, kilts?” Alistair asked, rather aghast.

“Yes. Dreadful. Inconvenient skirts for men, aren’t they?”

“If you ask me, it makes more sense for men to wear skirts, anatomy wise.” Arthur offered, giving a little shrug.

“Of course _you’d_ say that, Arty.” Alistair gave him a wink, just as the car created a massive boom, a plume of grey smoke exploding from it’s rear so violently it almost sent the old hunk of metal wheeling forward. It continued to grumble quietly.

“Fucking hell, what was that?!”

“Language, Arthur.”

“Just the car starting. Jump in.”

“Jump In- Alistair you’re going to murder us! That thing’s a ticking time bomb.”

“Grow a pair, You two! Mum, close your mouth, the smoke’ll choke you.” 

Alistair appeared out from the driver’s side of the car, or rather his upper half did, leaning out and around so as to get a good looked at their shocked faces. “I’m serious. Better not breathe too much of that stuff in.” 

 

******

As they started their drive, Arthur went on good enough in thinking about nothing but the road and streets around the car. They passed a petrol station once they hit the motorway, and Alistair stopped off to grab something to add to his (once again) increasing sandwich collection, and also chug his car a bit fuller. Arthur and his mother sat in relative silence for a few minutes, till she suddenly spun around, one hand on her heart and the other reaching for Arthur’s. He took her wrist quickly, not really understanding and patting her hand half-heartedly. She gasped out a noise, and then her hands flew up, and she covered her mouth. 

“What’s wrong mum?” Arthur asked quickly, bemused. 

“I- Oh, Arthur,” she took a sharp breath in, and then almost musically, she began to laugh. A Wheezing and shrieking laugh that filled up the entire car like a gas. She slammed her knees, her eyes and nose screwed up, and after a minute of trying to force her words out, she finally managed rather breathily.

“Oh dear, Arthur, you won’t believe what I’ve done!”

“What?” Arthur was still utterly confused. 

“I’ve… Oh dear. Your brother. Did anyone tell him we were leaving?”

“I didn’t,” Arthur grinned. Feeling an odd relief that he didn’t quite understand. 

“Me neither! D’you think Alistair-“

As though the mention of his name had summoned him, the drivers door suddenly opened letting in a gust of cold air, and the car rocked as Alistair planted himself back heavily into his seat, throwing a reduced price tuna mayonnaise sandwich box onto the dashboard. “D’you think Alistair what? And I’m not cleaning out the bloody car bin again, mum-“

“No. No. Although that’d be nice dear, yes. But what I was just saying to Arthur, well, did you happen to tell your brother we were leaving?”

There was a moment where Alistair processed the question, and then he began to laugh, the same sort as his mother.  
“Nope. Guessing you didn’t either?”

“She didn’t. Neither did I.” Arthur answered. Rearranging his seatbelt so that he could lean forward in between them.

Alistair, still laughing louder than a chuckle, began to start up the car, pulling at his seatbelt roughly at the same time.  
“Bloody thing…”

“Should we go back?” Arthur’s mother asked, her hand was now faintly pulling at her bottom lip, the humour gone from her for the most part. On the contrary, Alistair was still grinning as he shook his head.

“You’re stuck in the past, mum.” He swerved back into the motorway, earning a long and unending honk from behind. “We have mobile phones now. Just phone him.”

 

“Don’t be rude, Alistair. I don’t have a mobile phone, do I? I can all but bear that awful home phone. It really isn’t very homely, is it?”

“I have a mobile, mum.” Is a phrase that Arthur would now put at the top of his list of regretful sentences. 

“You do? Oh, of course you do. I bought it for you. Would you mind terribly?”

“Okay. Sure.”

Arthur tried him. There was the low buzz of the phone ringing, but he didn’t pick up. Arthur suddenly felt quite tired. Especially with this phone in his hand. He felt it might weigh his arm down, not because it was heavy. Not that at all. “Imma take a nap, mum. He didn’t pick up. I’ll try again when I wake up.”

“Hmm… Alright. But make sure you remember.”

So Arthur, finding a position that didn’t feel as though the next pothole might throw his head out of place, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. And he didn’t dream, nothing that he could remember anyway. It must have been the most painfully peaceful sleep he had had for a year. Just quiet. Just nothing. And he knew that because when he woke up it was five and half hours later and he didn’t have a headache. Or a faint memory of a horror that might have played out in his head. It was wonderful, but at the same time seemed all too fake. Too good for him and what he was going through now. He shuffled up, rubbed his aching neck and let out a big, long yawn. His mother began to speak to him as he rubbed his eyes clean and clear. 

“You’re awake dear. Sleep well?”

“Mm’yeah.”

“That’s jolly good. We’re almost there now.”

Arthur’s mouth almost dropped at this. 

“Seriously?”

“Mm’hmm, slept for well over five hours you just have. you can tell because someone’s eaten all the sweets.” Alistair replied. 

“I didn’t have any breakfast, Alistair.” His mother said, a hand on her stomach.

“Not my fault. Plus I offered you the sandwich.”

“Tuna is absolutely vile.”

“Woah… Mum. I didn’t know you felt this way. Are we from the same family?”

“Sometimes I wonder too. So,” his mother turned around to face Arthur, the empty sweet tin on her lap. The last remnants of the sugar glinted inside of it like dull sparks, and Arthur felt suddenly quite hungry. “Arthur, think you could try your brother again?”

So Arthur -really rather out of a habit born from his eagerness to always be helpful- reached into his jumper pocket, and pulled out his phone. Clicking it on with a quick press, and flipping it open. Now, he would have no idea why the thought didn't occur to him. A memory of a little voice, the one that warns you when your about to make stupidly bad decisions. He would be frustrated how, even as he tried to call his brother, and the call rang through, that nothing stopped him. Nothing at all as he decided that leaving a voice message would be too unreliable, and he should instead send him a quick text. Stupid. So utterly, thoughtlessly stupid. So really maybe, he deserved what was about to happen, for being so idiotic, so thoughtless. The blue square surrounded the little text icon, and almost as soon as he clicked the big silver button, was he treated to Alfred’s name, flashing in his face. His hand locked up. Went cold again. Felt bloodless. 

_01.03.1998_

_From: Alfie ;)_ __

__Did you try to get through??? I fell asleep. Exhausted. Try me again, k?_ _

_ Sent: 10:46 _

Arthur waited. Waited for that voice. That damn voice. But it seemed to have just sublimated. Wasn’t there at all. And he needed it. Needed it because he was stupid. So stupid.

**_Click_ ** __

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

_Please man._

_ Sent: 10:47 _

 

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Please.

_ Sent: 11:00 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Fuck. You’re not there are you.

_ Sent: 11:13 _

Arthur clutched at his seatbelt, pulling it away from his neck because he was suddenly short of breath. But it didn’t help. His throat, it hurt. It hurt a lot. And damn, he was thirsty again. He swallowed; sucking a heavy breath in. But I am. I’m here. I was there. I thought you weren’t. You’re not. Not now.

**_Click_ ** __

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Gonna sleep again. Im by a big tree with red berries. There’s nothing else I can see, except for trees. I’ll stay here as long as I can.

_ Sent: 12:23 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From; Alfie ;) _

Come find me. 

_ Sent: 12:23 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Please

_ Sent: 12:24 _

Arthur wasn’t sure, but his eyes began to burn so much that he may have been crying. 

 

_01.03.1998_

_From: Alfie ;)_ __

I keep sleeping. Think I’m hungry. Miss you, Art. I’m a bit angry though. Have you forgotten me? I’m still by the tree.

_ Sent: 14:56 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;)  _

Just thought I’d say I’m not by the red berries anymore. Looking for food. Stomach is getting painful man.”

_ Sent: 15:11 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

You think i should risk it with some berries? 

_ Sent: 15:25 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Man, wish I finished my smash. Fucking starving.

_ Sent: 15:46 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Didn’t try the berries. Don’t wanna die. You coming for me or not?

_ Sent: 15:47 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From; Alfie ;) _

Shit. Think I lost my little rucksack. That had some bottled water in it. Gonna go looking

_ Sent: 15:57 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From; Alfie ;) _

Can’t look right now. Gonna sleep. Might take the hunger away. Maybe the rucksake’ll help you find me. You know which one right? The red one with my initials on it? It’s very small.

_ Sent: 16:03 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Can’t sleep. Too hungry. Too much sun. Don’t want it to go away though. Gonna have another look for the bag.

_ Sent: 16:27 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Starting to get dark. Stay with me.

_ Sent: 17:56 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

Can’t get through to the old man. Are you guys looking for me? It’s seriously getting dark.

_ Sent: 17:59 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

It’s dark now

_ Sent: 18:45 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

I know you’re not religious, but mind If i pray with you? I’m scared, Arty.

_ Sent: 18:49 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

I said a prayer. We normally do that just before bed. Prayed that I’ll know what to do. I don’t right now. Prayed you might find me. You are looking aren’t you?

_ Sent: 18:52 _

_**Click** _

_ 01.03.1998 _

_ From: Alfie ;) _

I hate the dark man. Didn’t mind when you was here. But I’m alone now. Come find me soon. 

__

Night, Okay? I’m still angry at you. Why’re you taking so long??

_ Sent: 19:56 _

“Art, you done it?” Alistair's voice was almost extraordinary to hear. Arthur, for a second, had forgotten where he was. Thought he was in the forest again. That freezing and dark forest. Could almost feel the same breeze on his face, pricking at the tears in his eyes. But the rumble of the car, the short bangs and bursts it erupted with as it threatened to break down had soon brought Arthur back. Back to where he was, back to this here and now where Alfred wasn’t. But they were in the forest now, or atleast some form of it. The trees like glass stains on the car windows, slicing by with a blur.  
“Art?” Alistair began to twiddle at his rear-view mirror, till his green eyes were staring back at Arthur’s. 

 

“Oh damn, Art. You okay?”

His mother sat up at this, previously having been rummaging around in another travel sweets container. She swivelled around, her cheeks puffed and full with sweets. She said with unpronounced words and a trapped tongue “Oh, darling. What ever is the matter?”

Arthur wiped at his eyes, offering a sweet little “Nothin’. ” his jumper sleeve came away slightly wet, the stiffness of the wool making his sore eyes itch and burn. 

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, dear. What's happened?”

“Just said nothing.”

“You’re crying.” Alistair commented, as though revealing the news to Arthur.

“I know. Just feel car sick.”

“You don’t get car sick.” His mother joined in again.

“Yes I do. Now I do apparently.”

“What’re you looking at on your mobile phone?”

“Just texting thingy. Didn’t wanna leave a voicemail.”

“It…” her soft voice was hesitant. Fearful even. “It isn’t anything to do with your brother, is it?”

“No. No, mum. Really. I’m fine, just over tired I suppose. I was… I was just remembering things. Being in Scotland, you know…? Brings back some memories.”  
His mother’s face dropped and then screwed up with heavy sympathy, she knew exactly what he meant, and she wished to trouble him no further, though did reach back and give his hand a long, reassuring squeeze. She was just turning around again, trying to return her sweet tin back to the glove compartment when the car shot up sharply at the back caused the compartment to snap shut stiffly. Arthur and his mother shrieked sore-throatedly.

“Ah- fuckity fucking fucked balls.” Alistair swore, hands racing about the little sticks and buttons and wheels in front of him, trying to bring the car to a jittering stop, Arthur could feel it shoving this way and that, trying to slide and skid over what must be muddy floors.

“Oh dear! Deary me! What has fucked the balls, Alistair dear? It hasn’t backfired, has it?”

“Don’t know what it’s done mum, being a complete bastard is it is! There must have been a speed bump there. Who would put a speed bump on windy country roads like these? We’re basically as good as in a fucking forest. Brainless bastards. Who’s going for a car race in the fucking Scottish forest?”

“Calm down, dear. Calm down. It hasn’t broken in two, so that’s something.” 

“Might as well have! Fuck me, hit my nog hard on the ceiling, there.” 

“Chill, Alistair.” Arthur said, regaining his breath from the sudden shock. “Calm down. D’you want me to…” Arthur paused for an unnoticeable second, “call someone?”

“Fuck. Yeah. I think we might have to. I’ll have a look at it first though. Might need a tyre change or something. Took a bashing it must have.” Alistair sighed, slowly. “Arthur, can you help me? I’m sure mum would rather stay in the car.”

“Mothers change nappies, not tyres.” Their mother agreed, a hand still up against her cheek in the last physical faints of her shock.

“You told me dad changed my nappy.” Alistair Commented.

“Yes, well. You had an incommensurate amount of excretion for a child of your size. To be completely honest with you Alistair, the sheer amount of it would have been just too overwhelming for a new mother an-“

“Yes! Okay, I get it. You don’t want to change the tyre. C’mon Art. Get out.”

“It’s cold.” He moaned, but did as Alistair said anyway. Anything to avoid a call, to avoid having to use his phone. Anything.

 

“Mum said I hardly ever pooped when I was younger.” Arthur said, scrunching his hands into his coat pockets, collar up turned to his wind bitten cheeks. Alistair kicked the metal inside of the tire, nodding to himself. The wind had hit them both like a slap in the face when they had gotten out, but Arthur seemed the only one to do anything about it, Alistair was fine in his worn t-shirt and not-intentionally ripped jeans.

“That’s ‘cos you were saving it up. Wanted to let it all come out your gob when you were older, see?”

“Fuck you.” 

“Don’t test me when it comes to insults, Arthur. I live in fucking Scotland. I’ll destroy you.” Alistair gave him a soft punch on the shoulder, which made Arthur stumble backwards slightly. He tried to hide it best he could, jumping from foot to foot with a shiver.

“Still, fuck you. I’m freezing, you know.”

“Yeah, almost like its cold out.” 

“Ugh, Alistair. Just hurry the fuck up.” 

“I’m doing my best. I’m trying to see if I can even find anything wrong with it, first. Bloody tyre’s gotta be mussed up. Thing sounded like it exploded!”

“Maybe… try the other one?”

“Hm. Oh yeah. Good thinking.”

“I always was the smart one.”

“Mums the smart one. You’re the gay one.” 

Arthur curled his bottom lip under his teeth and bit it. A thin smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Alright.”

“...sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean - like, I didn’t mean to… didn’t…”

“S’alright. Probably find it funny in a couple weeks. Just… just reminded that I’m not quite used to yet, I guess. Just been thinking.”

Alistair was knelt down by the opposite back tire, so his bodiless voice rose up into the hissing wind, and he had to slightly shout so that Arthur could hear him, even though his voice was fragiler than it usually was.

“I am sorry. Gotta be more sensitive to you, that’s my problem. Forget you’re still my little brother sometimes. So grown up you are.”

“Heh.”

“You always be my little bro, though, won’t you?... know you can talk to me about anything?”

“I do. Thanks.”

There were a few moments of silence - or of what silence there can be in a forest brimming with life and wind and a clunking great mess of a broken car. But then Alistair spoke again, Arthur had to struggle to hear it against all the clank and banging of his workings.

“Art… can I ask you something?”

Arthur took a few seconds to answer. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Just been… playing on my mind for a while. I’ve noticed some things.”

“Oh?” Arthur was curious, painfully curious - but he didn’t sound it. He sounded tired.

“Yeah… um… do you remember that boy, Fred or somebody?”

Arthur pursed his lips, emotionless. “Alfred?”

“Yeah! That’s it. Remember him?”

“Of course I remember him. He was my best friend. You don’t just forget your best friend.” Arthur didn’t realise how fiery it must have come out, not till Alistair was standing up and heading for the car boot, his arms nearly raised in surrender. “Hey, hey. Not saying you did.”

“Good. Because I won’t. Not ever.” His phone felt cold in his pocket. Much colder than outside.

“Well that’s good. I just wanted to… well look, I’ve been tryna piece some things together. Just piecing things. I never met Alfred. Ain’t even ever seen a picture of him, so I really ain’t one to be thinking like this, but… well Art… how do I say this?”

 

Arthur shrugged, even though Alistair wasn’t at all engaging with him at the moment, he was too busy wheeling out a new tire, and squashing his thoughts together coherently. The big rubber wheel squeaked and crunched as it was driven over to its vacant space. Arthur couldn’t see what was going on, but he could only guess that Alistair was somewhat finished with the tire change. 

“I just mean…” he was back on the ground again, out of sight. Clinking and scraping away. “I just… Well I’ll just go all out and say it, will I? You and him were… more than just friends, weren’t you?”

Arthur was expecting something like this. Something to do with that, because it was all a mystery to everyone else, wasn’t it? No one could understand a thing. No one could have guessed a tidbit. Best friends they were, Arthur and Alfred. To everyone else, just best friends. But that’s just it, it was obvious. Absolutely obvious that they were something more than that. But the ugly truth, when it is ill enough for one to want to, can easily get sewn over with the thin threads of a more comfortable and easy resting lie. So Arthur knew that when Alistair asked his question, he didn’t actually need an answer. But Arthur couldn’t quite pinpoint whether he wanted a lie or not: sometimes the threads come a bit Unplucked and you need to sew them up again, and other times it’s best just to unpick them entirely and see what stuffing is hidden inside. So Arthur didn’t really know what to answer him. So he said nothing. And to his relief, Alistair continued on.

“It won’t change what I think of you, Art. I’m just… well it’s curiosity, isn’t it? An annoying fucking thing it is. I don’t want you to have to keep secrets, Art. Not about things like that, y’know? First loves, sort of. Shouldn’t be a secret, should it? Just want you to tell me, so you know you can.”

Arthur shrugged, but it wasn’t as though Alistair could at all see him.

“And,” he continued “ I’d like to know if you beat me in getting your first kiss. Because I hold the family record so far - was seventeen actually.” 

His tone dripped with boastfulness and Arthur bit the inside of his cheek. It was so cold that the wind stung the very fronts of his teeth. He couldn’t think for a second, it was fuzzy - and then straight after he could. So coherently, That it almost gave him a head ache. He let go of the phone in his pocket, and it dropped to the deepest corner.

“Sixteen.” He said.

 

“Huh?”

“I beat you. I was sixteen.” And then he added in the quiet that came after it “ We were sixteen.”

There was another quiet, and Arthur suddenly felt quite warm and out of place. The air, as wind struck as it was, seemed to dance stillingly for a second or two - as heavy as the feeling in his stomach. And then something metal dropped and Alistair laughed. 

“What's so funny?”

“Oh… you are, Arthur.”

Arthur frowned, although he could have laughed himself, really.

“Why?”

“Because, Ah I don’t know. You’d tell me your deepest and darkest secrets if it meant you’d beat me.” And then he tacked in quite gracefully at the end, “and maybe you just have.”

Arthur breathed out heavily, the chill in the air striking back up, and buried his head into his coat collar. “Why’s it matter, anyway?”

“It doesn’t need to matter, Arthur. Not everything  
You say to me has to be life changing. You can just tell me about yourself once in a while, your favourite colour, favourite food. Things like that, you know?”

“Green. And cake. I like cake.”

“What type of cake?”

“Victoria Sponge. With a lot of jam.”

“Mm’yea. I’m partial to a lick of jam myself. Now tell me what you liked about Alfred.”

Arthur scoffed, eyebrows raising. It felt as if they were growing icicles. “Bit of a change of subject, don’t you think? _I really like strawberry jam, now tell me about the boy you were fucking.”_

“You were _what_?”

“No, no. Joking.”

“So you never did…?”

“Of course fucking not Alistair. We were sixteen and seventeen, Wouldn’t have even known where to begin. Most we ever did was kiss, I swear.”

“Nothing else? At all? You’re lying to me.”

“I’m not.”

“Ya didn’t even try?”

“No, fuck sake no.” _Except that night…_ “listen- do you actually need me, or are you just using me to keep you company? Because I’m cold. I want to go back in the car.”

“Alright, Alright. I’m almost done here - but I think I may still need you to call a motor service. I doubt the wheel’s the only problem.” 

“Well why don’t you try it at least.” 

“I will. I will. But i want to go see if I can find what we drove over… thinking of it now actually- you don’t think it could have been a person, do you?”

“What?! No! Fuck no. You’re dark Alistair, you really are. You would have seen a person lying on the ground. No, probably just a big tree branch or something. It doesn’t take a lot to knock this junk pile out of shape. ‘Member when I put a _Mars Bar_ into that pipe thing?”

“Oh, yeah! You were such a little knobhead as a toddler.” Alistair shook his head, his grubby hand was pressing with two fingers at his temple. “But I mean, still… can we go look? Just in case?”

Arthur sighed, louder than needs be, and shrugged dramatically. He felt the weight of the phone slide side to side in his pocket. “If you must. I’ll go back to the car.”

“No! No, I mean… come with me, huh? Just in case it is a person. I’d need someone to ring an ambulance or something.”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m scared for the person-we-just-ran-over’s safety.”

“We didn’t just run over a person!”

“Arthur, please?”

There was a moment when Arthur thought Alistair was about to fall to his knees and beg him, grovel to him and clutch his hand. But he just stood there, pathetically wide eyed and unbalanced. Arthur bit his cheek, secured his coat tighter around him and nodded. “Alright. Okay. But we’ll just be wasting time.”

“Come on then. I think it was just round that bend there.”

“There’s only one road it could be on, Alistair.”

“Shut up. Just come on.”

They began to walk, forest all around them. They stuck to a trail that had been run down and squashed by cars far before theirs, leaving little muddy ridges that acted like rails between them. Alistair walked on one side and Arthur the other, both silent and tired. The tree’s worked like walls, shielding them on either side with great big trunks that seemed to grow thicker and more endless the further on one looked. A haze grew from them, like a purple unwound string of wool that weaved in and out of their branches. Arthur was sure the sun was setting, somewhere above those black things. Something purple and golden and warm, he was sure. But under here, it was cold. Very very cold. The wind began to pick up speed, the whistling from before transforming into something louder and sharper. Arthur shook his sleeves down over his hands, glancing over at Alistair to see how he was getting on. He didn’t even have a coat, instead he had pulled his bare arms close to his sides, a frown being frozen slowly onto his face. 

“Windy. Isn’t it Ali?”

“Is it? Didn’t notice.”

“You Okay, mate?”

“Mm’yes. Fine thanks.”

“Don’t want my scarf or something?”

“Arthur this is my natural habitat. I feel like I’m in a summer morn.”

“Summer fuckin morn. You’re daft. Take my scarf.” 

“Don’t want it.”

Arthur began to unwind the knitted thing. Tugging it away from his neck, and shivering with displeasure as the wind found its way into the opening instantly. 

“Take it.”

“Arthur I’m-“

“You’re co-o-o-o-old just take it, fucking hell.” 

“I don’t-“

Arthur threw it at him, regretting it instantly as his dodgy projectile sent the scarf billowing for the mud underfoot. Just as Arthur was about to swear in irritation, Alistair reached out and caught it, bringing it in close to him with a slight wobbly. He sent arthur a tight smile as he shifted it round his shoulders and clasped it shut tight at the front.

“Well I can’t exactly give it back now, I guess.”

“No, and I d-“

“Wait, look! Hold on. What’s all this?”

“Ha, damn Ali. Looks like you ran over rock climber - there’s clothes just everywhere.”  
And there was, they littered the floor, a long piece of elastic string and a few forks sat upon them like rocks and debris. They were thrown either side of the path, as though something had eaten them up and churned them out. They weren’t damaged though. Some not even dirty, but they were folded over and creased like they hadn’t been worn in a while.

Arthur’s foot tangled up with the blue sleeve of a top, and he stumbled forward, hopping onto to one foot to steady himself. His heel hit something suddenly, and he tripped over, landing heavily onto his bum. Twigs snapped beneath him, and his could feel his pulse beating in his spine as an ache started to well up.  
“Aw-“

Alistair laughed short and loud, taking a few steps towards Arthur’s grazed body. 

“Careful, you sausage.”

“That really fucking hurt.”

“Yeah. Looked like it did. Also looked funny.” Alistair kicked at something by Arthur’s ankles, and again as he spoke “all this stuff must have come from this bag, then.”

Arthur looked for it, beginning to dust off his sore palms. Little droplets of blood began to grow from his skin, creating red dotted lines around his knuckles.

It must have taken Arthur a few seconds to find the words _‘Alfred F. Jones’_ scrawled onto the arm band of the bag, and another few seconds to comprehend them as more than just wonky letters written in black marker pen. He kicked the bag away from him, he didn’t even think about it as he did it. It was an involuntary action, like pulling ones hand away from some spilt boiling water. The sack plopped over twice, lodging itself into a bulging shape, sitting like a bean bag. Arthur pushed himself away from it sharply. He hardly felt his stinging hands or bruised back as he scraped to get up. His stiff fingers brushed a pair of jeans - Alfreds jeans - in his hurry to get away, and his arm flicked out violently and he gurgled out what could have been a scream, sending the trousers into a heap at the base of a tree. 

“Woah- Woah! Arthur! What? What? Was there a spider or something?” 

Arthur felt as if his skin was squirming. He bit his finger nails into his palms, still half way to standing, trying to get the cold and painful feeling to leave. The denim’s touch made him feel sick. So sick. And he took a shaky breath in, finally making it to his feet. He held on for a moment, ignoring Alistair, who was beginning to walk over to him. He closed his wet eyes, closed his gaping mouth, stuck his bent knees together and pulled his his fists into his stomach as he heaved over and felt his throat push with the need to throw up. Bile stung his tonsils, but nothing happened. He took a deep breath in, again and again. Still he retched, but his body seemed to only vomit up his shock and disgust, but it didn’t empty out of him. Alistair leant an arm round his shoulders, held him close to his warm chest. 

“Hey, Arthur, what’s wrong? You gonna puke? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Alistair-“ Arthur held onto his hand.  
“Alistair. I want to go back. Back to the car, now.”

“Arthur?”

“Now!”

“Okay… I… okay. Okay. Come on. Take it easy.” Alistair took Arthurs weight, even though the boy had straightened up by now. He was light, and dizzy and felt like falling straight to the ground again.

“ don’t know where all this bottle’s come from, well, maybe bottle isn’t the right word. Don’t know what to call it. If you’re not gonna tell me what happened.”

“Alistair…” Arthur almost sobbed, but held it in so that his voice shook when he next spoke. The image of pain.

“Alistair… Alistair, the bag and the clothes.” He forced trapped air out from his lungs, breathing started to grow painful. “They were all just… the bag. It said his name on it.”

“Whose name? Come on Art. The hell is wrong with you? Careful with your step there.”

“His name, Alfreds. That was his bag. And his clothes. Because it said his name.”

“What? What are you talking about?” 

“For fucks sake! That shit back there - Alfreds! All Alfreds! The fuck doesn’t make sense to you?” 

Alistair's smooth pace hitched suddenly, but only for a second. He held Arthur tighter to him, beginning to pull him forward instead of just leading him. “Alright. Alright. It’s alright.” 

“Am I making sense? Am I?”

“Just come on Arthur. we’re here now.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“Alright now, Arthur. Look, there’s the car.”

 

***

Arthur had wound himself into a tight ball when His mother had stepped out the car to go talk to Alistair. He had stopped crying by now, well actually he couldn’t remember if he had been in the first place. All he knew was that whatever it was, it had stopped now. Because he felt empty. Not that he didn't feel anything, but rather that whatever he was feeling was so large and black and horrid that it felt like a heavy, empty space. He listened to his breathing, quietened it down. Watched the black space in front of him, head collapsed into his bent knees that were pulled tightly into his chest. In this position, the easily painful way his phone jabbed into his rib cage was slowly and agonisingly becoming numb. His hands gripped at his trouser legs, wrists crossed over each other like a makeshift belt. He sat like that for a while, felt as if he was watching himself sleeping - so silently and peacefully drifting off into the blackness he had surrounded himself with. But the the car door clicked open, and the framework rocked left and right as two bodies sat in. He frowned, feeling sick with tiredness as he lifted his head up from his arms. At first there was just white light, and then there was Alistair sitting in the driver's seat in front of him, steering wheel firmly in his hands. His mother sitting in the passenger's seat, a red and beaten rucksack in hers.

Arthur's head lulled back and hit the widow, his arms unfurled and dropped down from either side of him, and his legs slid forward as his body dropped and toppled into itself. Arthur had always known that the first time he would faint, he would be in this bloody car.


	4. Pick Up

_“Can I tell you something?”_

__

__

_“Sure... Whats up?”_

Arthur pressed the phone into the side of his head, leaning his arm against the armrest of the chair. Alistairs apartment wasn’t small, but with baggage (most specifically their mothers belongings) propped up around in any empty floor space available, it began to get a bit like an assault course. 

When they had arrived about an hour earlier, Arthur was still finding he could taste the need to stay by a sink or a toilet, so without having any time to really look around the place, he’d chased himself off to the nearest bathroom - the only bathroom, he supposed. He’d stayed in there about half an hour, still dressed up from his collared coat to his shell-toe trainers, neck still cold from the absence of his scarf. He must ask Alistair for that back. He’d been so focused on wondering how he was supposed to feel in these moments, that he hadn’t realised there was still the world going on in its usual stride around him. Just with the added amenity of a little, red rucksack. 

So When Arthur had finally emerged from the bathroom, coat now hanging over his arm, health magazine in one hand and his phone in the other, he’d almost tripped over a dodgily placed suitcase, and had to grip onto the window ledge to catch himself. His hands and knuckles stung with the sudden reflex, it was only a little and sore sting - but what it reminded him of, the very recent memory of the sting that had come before - made him feel short of breath, and he found himself quickly plucking his feet in and out of bags in order to reach the yellow armchair that beckoned him up ahead. When he had plunged himself down into it, he had finally the time and the need to be without an empty head that he decided to spend a short duration looking about Alistair's own place. ‘Looking about’ only meaning twisting his head side to side to get a look at what was immediately around him. That being; a single bed with a checkered _Ikea_ bedspread, a blue lamp sitting on a bedside table that looked as though it had come from the same place, a pleasant dousing of modern and traditional art hanging around the walls with no clear pacing or aesthetic consideration to them and finally a healthy amount of books and magazines piled on top of eachother like some sort of literary jenga. Arthur was sure there were bound to be a couple of naughty ones that he could proudly reveal to his mum, only to show off Alistair’s reading habits of course. 

After locating what he thought looked like the panelled entrance to a kitchen, and tracing back his steps mentally to the bathroom, he felt somewhat comfortable. That is if he chose to take the moments as they came, and not dwell on the nagging little thoughts biting at him maliciously. The knife constantly in his hand, gleaming silver and flashing at him angrily now. Arthur clicked his phone open, half expecting Alfred to be ringing him - hoping - not expecting. _Lilli_ flashed white on the screen, and with only slight hesitation, Arthur answered it and slowly brought the phone to his ear. 

“Hello?”

“Arthur? It’s Lil. Alright?” Her high voice was like the auditory embodiment of a sharp ray of light escaping in through a closed curtain. A bit annoying, but nice to lighten a mood. She sounded excited, almost as though she was about to burst out through the phones speaker.

“Oh, Hey Lils. why you calling?”

“See my texts?”

Arthur could only smile.

“No. Sorry, haven't checked. Been on a car trip.”

“Oooooo! Where’re you going? Finally making a grand escape from Sir?”

Arthur laughed, not all from humour.

“I wish. Nah, just taking a holiday - like most people do during the _holidays_.”

She giggled. Something Arthur had grown so used to after a year spent with Lilli, that its ability to jolt his memory so painfully had surprised him. When something horrible happens, it feels as though everything somehow becomes an indirect reference to it. For Arthur, chain links were starting to form fast, growing tighter and tighter, and what’s worse - is Arthur wasn’t sure if it was him they were tightening on, or Alfred.

“Not on half term, that’s overreacting. Most people just sleep, so shut up.”

“Most people just sleep, you say, calling me at midnight, fully awake.”

“Well, you don't sleep all the time, do you? Idiot. You have to eat and wash and stuff, And if you don’t brush your teeth then that’s just gross.”

“So, I take it your brushing your teeth right now, then?”

“No. no. Let me finish. And sometimes, you just have to call up your best gay friend and get his advice.”

“Best gay friend? You have so many you have to catagorise us now, yeah?”

“You’ll always be my number one and you know that, but seriously, you being gay is like important right now. Right so, Francis yeah?”

“Frogface. Carry on.”

“ _Francis_. Okay? Right, so. The other day he basically stopped to speak to me-“

“Oh, Lil. You’re not-“

“I _am_. He’s so pretty.”

“Lilli, bloody hell.”

“He is pretty, right? I’m not just bollocksing myself?”

“ _Bollocksing_ yourself? Sure.”

“Arthur? Come o-o-o-on.”

Arthur breathed out sharply, pulling the smile from his face, he tapped the phone against his head as he thought. Long hair, sharp cheekbones, already growing a beard.  
“Ugh, sure. He’s pretty.” But Arthur didn’t know why he thought that, when all that his insides kept squealing to him was _how dare you. You should be thinking of Alfred. How dare you even think that. You killed him, and now you won’t even spare him a thought_.

He rubbed his thumb along his brow, almost trying to the squeeze the thoughts out of him like one might do to an almost empty toothpaste tube. Silly, but it worked for the time being, as Lilli’s shrill laugh pierced through the speaker.

“Aha! I knew you’d admit it!”

“I’m not admitting anything. I said that against my will.”

“Well, i got it recorded anyway.”

“Lilli!”

“Joking! Joking. But you do actually think that, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah sure. But…I mean he’s pretty yeah but he’s all like… French and stuff.” 

“Keep your weirdly rooted racism out of this conversation for a bit, I need an opinion, kay?”

“Hit me.”

“Why would I do that? Oddly sexual.”

“What? No, no. It means like- anyway, what do you need an opinion on?”

“That’s blatantly obvious, isn’t it? How do I ask him out?”

Arthur blew air out of his lips with a little _pop_ , in what was supposedly a laugh.  
“Bloody hell that's fast. We’ve gone from ‘he spoke to me for a second’ to ‘how do I propose to him’.”

“Arthur, stop being a sarcastic little idiot for a second. This is really, really serious.”

“I have to be a sarcastic little idiot. Being gay and mildly bitchy is as close as I get to interesting.” 

“Arthur, ple-e-e-e-e-ase.”

“Alright, Alright. Sorry. But I don’t really know why you’d think I would know.”

“Well… because you’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“Huh?” Arthur screwed up his face. Ask Francis out? The only time he would have ever done it is in a nightmare. One of those ones where it feels completely normal in the dream, but the shame you feel when you wake up almost outweighs the fear. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and his confusion only worsened as she seemed to wait expectantly on the other side of the line. She hummed tunelessly for a second and then took in a short little breath.

“Well, how did you ask Alfred out?” 

Arthur let the phone slip down inside his hand, and sat still for a long, long second, long enough that he soon heard the muffled voice of Lilli bursting through the phone in a confetti of little _hellos_? And _Are you still theres_? And he brought the almost vibrating device back up to his now very warm cheek. 

“I didn’t.” He answered plainly.

“But weren’t you-“

“Can we not mention him? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a bitch but… yeah. Can we not?”

“Huh? I thought you were better now?” Her voice was quieter, and much to Arthur’s dismay, he had to press the phone hard into his ear to hear her. It felt as though it was about to pass through his skull and into his brain, so he pressed harder, till it hurt.

“Yeah.” He said, and then quickly “Was.”

She didn’t do anything, not immediately, instead she just breathed slowly and shortly, as though trying to keep quiet. The breath of someone who was used to not saying anything, just listening. And suddenly Arthur felt the phone creak against his skull - or maybe it was his skull creaking - and in some self-sympathetic way it gave him a need for her to listen. And he wasn’t sure if it was because he was reminded of his painful loneliness, or Alfreds, but either way, he just needed someone to listen. Someone who could only listen, and do nothing else. His problems were in this phone, so his aide should damn well come from it too. That’s how he illogically saw it. So he asked

“Can I tell you something?”

“Sure… What’s up?”

“Do you remember when he went missing?”

There was a noise that could have been stuttering, and then an “Of course I do,” said as though it should be blatantly obvious. Most likely, it was. But Arthur was no longer sure what the rules were anymore. Everything seemed on such a set course, as though it had been meticulously planned out and set up from the start. Maybe that was just his way of understanding that he felt helpless, maybe it was putting a reply to the all too easily brushed off phrase ‘but that would never happen to me’. Or maybe, just maybe, it was correct.

“Well, do you remember he had his phone? You were interested in it, remember?”

“With the light up keypad and the picture of that food and stuff?” 

“That’s the most syllables I’ve ever heard in ‘yes’”

She didn’t laugh. Instead taking a quiet breath, and then asking nervously,

“What… what about it? Him?”

Arthur shrugged, forgetting she couldn't see him. He suddenly felt as though if he would speak, tell someone else, then it would all become much more real. More real than the texts. More real than the clothes. More real than the bag with Alfred’s name on, now sitting like a deconstructed bomb near him somewhere. But if he told someone, he wouldn’t feel so crushingly alone with it any longer. Or as if he was making it all up. 

He took a deep breath, Almost began to speak. But then Lilli continued.

“It’s not about that time he kissed me, is it?”

Arthur stopped, not sure if he had heard correctly, but knowing he had.

“Wait, sorry, what?” His voice was low, and he swivelled around with each word, pulling himself deeper into the chair and beginning to hunch over onto his words

“The week before he went missing, remember? when he kissed me. Are you mad at me?”

“I didn’t… I didn’t know he…”

“I think it was his mum!” She said quickly. “That made him do it. You know. Because, he basically said to me - sort of after - I was all a bit _umm okay_ you know? Because I liked him a bit... that doesn't matter, anyway. But basically, I think his mum might have suspected something or something I don’t know. You know? Because straight after it, he said to me, ‘If you see my mum tell her about this, it’ll be funny’ or something. And I said, I just told him straight out, that that’s weird and I didn’t want to and he got all a bit like… well like _‘please’_.”

 

Arthur didn’t say anything, he had the overwhelming feeling of knowing he should care, but not. Feeling as though anything that happened sequential to the forest meant nothing now, because what did it matter? They were two different worlds, and Arthur felt he was living all in his own one. He didn’t say anything, and Lilli’s mouth carried on running off, no doubt the most she had ever spoken in one go. Her words sort of magnetically slid into each other, as though she wasn’t used to having to hold them apart, used to having them have any impact.

“And, well it wasn’t as if we were even somewhere deep, you know? It was a classroom. School, so… well, yeah. We were just revising a bit, for chemistry, I think it was.” She took a deep, lonely breath. Could have been wheezing. 

“It was chemistry. I remember because he said _‘we have signal’_ So I think he meant ‘we have chemistry’, I remember thinking, we’re doing chemistry and you’ve gone and forgotten the word for it. Which I found funny, but it’s a stupid joke, isn’t it? Arthur? Bit stupid. Because it’s not even funny, but I think… well, I think because I liked him it made me get a bit nervous. You know how when the teacher tells you off for laughing and it makes you laugh more? Sort of like that. Well, not like that at all, really. I don’t know… I just found it funny. And it was all very dark, because the blinds were closed. There was a bee buzzing, see? So we had to trap it behind the blinds, so they were closed. And it was dark, and I guess… yeah, I was sorta nervous. And then he said the signal thing, and I just laughed and he said _‘I’m not joking’_. All serious, but he’s not serious, is he? I should have known then.” She laughed- giggled, because she doesn't laugh, she giggles. All the time. And it really pisses Arthur off. Right then, it seemed to etch it’s way like an electrical shock to the behinds of his eyes. He took the phone away from his ear for a second, frowning at it, and then replaced it back to its prior position between his shoulder and ear. She had already begun to talk again, and Arthur had caught her in the middle of a sentence.

“-Pushed me right back and kissed me. All awkwardly. I didn’t know then because it was my first kiss… yeah, but it really wasn’t a very good one.”

“He was a pretty good kisser, though.” Arthur said, he wasn't sure why. Or especially why so sharply. Maybe just to remind himself that that world, and this one she was describing, didn’t mean anything. The one he knew, did, however. He wasn’t sure why either set of events were more important than the other, nor why he should differentiate anything. Wishful, he supposed. Still, he felt as though he was privee to a secret that entirely changed what everything meant. Everything Alfred did, Arthur felt he knew him well enough to know exactly why he did it. This however, didn’t fit into that. And it confused him. Upset him, maybe.

“Yeah, uhm, I’m sure. But he wasn’t very good then. I guess he just… didn’t mean it.”

“Why else? Why else would he do it?” He asked, straightening up.

“I told you, because I think his mum suspected something.”

“Suspected what?”

“You know… that he was gay. I don’t know. I did know, I don’t know right now.”

“But, she couldn’t have. Couldn’t have, because when mum told her, she didn’t know. Didn’t even seem to suspect… She just couldn’t have.”

“She did, I promise, because… well why else? I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and… well yeah, just the way he always wanted me to talk about it with his mum. Just weird, you know? It must have been.”

“But then… why would she act like she didn’t know? Mum said she was shocked. And I mean utterly flabberghasted.”

“Your mum said? So you didn’t actually see her, so maybe it played out a bit different, I don’t know, I mean maybe you misunderstood what your mum was saying. But I’ve never been surer of something in my life, Arthur, I swear she knew something.”

“So… Mum was lying?”

“No! No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying you weren’t actually there, so you maybe misunderstood something, yeah?”

“No. I remember exactly what she said. Exactly. I couldn’t my have misunderstood.” 

“Well… I don’t know. It’s all a bit weird.”

His mother stepped into the room in the middle of her own conversation, a Home phone in her hand, the looping wire coiled around her finger, she smiled at him, and and learnt against the wall, jumping back into her words.

Arthur’s phone buzzed with a new text, he grimaced. 

“Arthur? You there?” Lilli asked, her voice quieter.  
“Sorry if I’ve upset you or something, I’m seriously sorry… I know how hard it’s been for you, yeah I know. When he disappeared you weren’t ever really the same, and I won’t pretend to imagine what it was like, but I can’t help but think that maybe… oh, I don’t know. Maybe ask your mum, speak about it with her again. I think it might help. I don’t know why it’s suddenly on your mind again, I don’t mean that how it sounds. But… yeah. Maybe it would help to clear some things up with her.”

“Yeah… I will.” Arthur said, after a very long while. His eyes focused on his mother the entire time. Unsure of why.

“Arthur…?” Lilli said, a slight shake in her voice.

“Hm?”

“You’re still my friend, aren’t you?”

He didn’t know why he took so long to answer, nor why she had even asked in the first place. 

_She Kissed Him_.

“Yeah, I don’t know, yeah. Yeah of course I am. You haven’t done anything. I’m just a bit confused. I’m going to have to go ‘cos I just got a text, it might be my brother asking where the fuck we are.”

“Oh,” she laughed. “… yeah okay. See you after the holidays.”

“Buh-bye.”

She began to speak again, but Arthur hung up, looking towards the empty doorway where his mother had been previously. He called for her and she came slowly, unsmiling but not unkind. Nervous, almost.

“Alistair’s on his way back with some Chinese takeaway for tea. A bit late for tea now, really, but I’m sure you could do with some food.” She said, looking towards the door as though she expected him to walk in on the mentioning of his name.

Arthur nodded. “Cool. Cool… Mum, hey mum can I ask you something?” He said. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to ask yet, not if he even wanted to ask it. But he was sure something was being left unsaid here, and feeling - after the bag - that anything was now unfortunately possible, he wanted to get his thoughts together. And so he waited for her to sit down opposite him, and then put his phone into the drop between his crossed legs, leaning down onto his knees and offering his full attention, as little as that may be.

“Of course, sweetheart. You must feel… awfully rough after all that cuffufle.”

He shrugged.  
“Yeah nah. I don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything, really.” He looked down, spotting his phone again and looking away quickly. “Worse things have happened recently.”

“The bullying?” She asked softly, putting a hand on his knee.

“I’m not getting bullied.”

“Because you know… if you found yourself a girlfriend, I think-“

“Mum, no. I’m not doing that. I’m not even talking about it right now. I don’t care about that, okay? Doesn’t matter. I just wanna tell you something. Let me tell you something.”

She took her hand back, a frown in her eyes.  
“Go ahead,” she said quietly after a moment.

He took a very deep breath, what must have been his hundredth today. He wondered where all the air was really going at this point. _Strength_.

He’d needed it in a surplus today.

“Mum… you know uhm… Alfred’s parents and all that?”

Her face frowned with her eyes this time.  
“In what way?”

“Well, never mind, anyway, do you remember when you went to tell them… you know… what me and Alfred were doing?”

“Alfred _and I_. And yes, of course I do. What a terrible shock it gave them, imagine learning that about your missing son. Horrible. It was hard enough for me to take in, and you’re here with me. Just imagine.”

“Uhm. Yeah, yeah that’s exactly what I want to ask about. Because… because it wasn’t, was it? A terrible shock. They weren’t shocked because they knew. Didn’t they?”

There was a momentary drop in her eyes, the way her eyelids fluttered shut and looked more transparent than ever. It told Arthur everything.

“What? What do you even mean, darling?”

“Mum they knew. They knew didn’t they? I’m almost sure they knew. Or at least suspected. Mum, didn’t they?”

“Arthur, Arthur you’re worrying about nothing darling.” Her hands flew up, flustered. Caught out. She shook her head and crossed her legs in a mechanical motion as some sort of dusty cog joltedly started turning somewhere inside her. Arthur reached out for her hands quickly, his right leg dropping down for balance and with it slid his phone. It landed with an echoed thud on the carpeted floor. 

“No! No, mum! I’m not. I’m not because I don’t give a monkeys about if they were or not. Kay? I just wanna know like… why lie? Or who lied or… yeah. Just fill in the gap for me.” He held her cold hands firmly, now with both of his, almost like reigning a frightened horse that threatened to escape. 

“Please. For me.”

There was a very long silence. Long enough to feel stretched out and dizzyingly distorted. As though the questions needed time to freeze over and thaw. His mother looked broken, not distraught, but just… flaccidly unworking. As though that dusty old cog had finally ticked over. Then suddenly, like a jolt of wind had picked her up by the arms, she got up quickly, shaking off Arthur’s tight grip with a hardy thoroughness and shaking her head.

“Arthur just don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about Alfred or his parents. They’re gone. Arthur they’re all gone, okay? Dead or moved, they’re gone. So don’t worry. I’ll get rid of the bag and then none of this would have had to happen. Dear. None of it. So forget it.”

“Wait! wait mum!” Arthur got up suddenly, desperate to finish whatever he had started. It was all happening too fast. Nothing and everything had been said and said far too loudly. He felt the coldness of his phone underfoot as he hopped over. Felt it buzz again as he lifted it up and held it out to her in a semi-offering.

“Wait! It’s not just the bag, okay? Just look, okay? Look here.” He flicked the phone open, still half waiting for her to grab it off of him. Uninterestedly he noticed the door unlocking loudly, Alistair letting himself in with bags of take away and whatever else. No one returned his greeting.

2 new messages

He clicked, his wrist shaking in a different sort of panic. Desperate to prove to his mum that Alfred was not in the past. That she needs to tell him. Needed to.

_03.03.1999  
From: Alfie ;)_

__

_Hey. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me but I’ve just gotten my number back and I really, really miss you. I’m sorry you hate me and you’ll hate this message but, I really miss you. A lot haha._

__

_Love, Ya Alfie :-)_

__

_ Sent: 00:34 _

Suddenly, his mother was but a white shadow in front of him. The point on her at which all his efforts had been pointed to had sharply twisted around and pierced his own chest and crumbled into his own empty lungs. Dropping from there into his stomach as he looked back up and read _‘1999’_ slowly and surely to himself.

He clicked down.

_03.03.1999  
From; Alfie ;)_

__

_Infact, mind if I call you? you don’t have to pick up. I’ll call you anyway_.

__

_Try and Pls pick up though. I hope this is still your number haha_

__

_ Sent: 00:42 _

 

His phone began to buzz. _‘Alfie ;)’_ flashing on the screen, a small square picture of him with a crudely drawn ‘;-)’ scribbled on his cheek, grinning widely and giving a big thumbs up sitting just below his name in a white box. Emotionless, empty, shocked; Arthur clicked the accept button, and with glass fingers, held the phone to his ear.

There was a few seconds of clatter and buzzing from the other side of the line, and then a stark and sour silence.

“Uh, hey, Arthur? hello?” Alfred said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And so it begins_
> 
> I'm so nervous about posting this chapter, but I'm so happy it's finally out and I can't wait for yalls feedback :") I love them more than typing allows ahh <3  
> Not many more chapters left now, hopefully i won't make you guys wait another year for the next one omds 
> 
> Also, warning, if your friends offer to narrate your fanfic like some sinful audiobook, make sure to vigorously decline. I'm scarred.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! See ya in the next instalment <3


	5. Shattered

He hadn’t meant to break the phone.   
Hadn’t meant to smash it into so many pieces. 

 

He’d wanted to listen to Alfred for longer, listen to the voice of a ghost - and how much it seemed just that; the words low and quiet, the breath long and louder than anything said, the subject like some far off childhood story rekindled in Arthur’s memory. For the brief moments they were both silent, it was as if the world about him continued again, his mother standing with her legs braced and ready to skitter away or to him, a hand pathetically outstretched for the phone that she was no longer offered. His brother somewhere off behind her, half frozen with the embarrassment that comes from walking into an oddly tense situation without any context, and half edging towards the kitchen as the smell of Chinese food and the promise of a thinner atmosphere pulled him off. And then Alfred would start talking again. His voice just as it was a year ago, as if they had jumped straight back into a conversation that had been cut short. Talking to him on the phone felt no less foreign to Arthur than it ever used to, it was only when he would go quiet, make a noise to show he was still there, that Arthur would pull the phone close into himself with both hands, clutching it tightly, scared it may burst out of his grip, and the entire thing would feel like a twisted dream. 

“I’ve missed you.” Alfred said for what must have been the fifth time. “Like, I know I’ve said it, but I’ve missed you a lot.”

“Yeah. You too.”

“And I’ve got so much to tell you, like about America, it’s as fun as I remember. ‘Cos they got ice cream just everywhere and I know that you wouldn’t like that but I do and it’s really cool, this one guy came up to me and gave me a hug and said ‘hey man, love that enthusiasm you got there.’ And I still have no idea what he meant but I liked my enthusiasm too, I think. And I remember thinking that you’d really like it here. ‘Cos _you_ always liked my enthusiasm, didn’t you?”

Arthur laughed. He remembered what actual laughter felt like. The excitable way it grabbed at your lungs and pulled at your stomach saying _See? you’re meant to be happy. Be happy._

“If that’s what you wanna call it. I’d call it, probably, endlessly energetic. Like when you scream and stuff, when you’re happy, remember?” 

“Not just when I’m happy, like, excited. Real excited. To be honest, I feel like screaming now. Can you hear it? In my voice?”

After he had picked that phone up, he felt like he could hear everything once again, as though some part of him had been muffled and muted this entire year. It frightened him, how little of his life he realised he had been living, how obsessed and closed off he had become with his own grief. He didn’t quite understand it all yet. He didn’t know he would ever want to, all he could say was that anything and everything felt absolutely possible, and that was no longer something that scared him.

“Yeah. Yeah I can, what about mine?”

“Uhhhh, not yet. But hey, if it makes you feel better, your tone never changes. You’ve always got that _‘get off my lawn you darn kids’_ sorta emotion.”

“I have, haven't I? Fuck.”

“What about me? What do I sound like? Hunky? Like uh, Tom Hanks? Know him? You’d like him. I think I’m like him. Oh! I got abs now, cool huh? I’m like a uhhhh, like a flesh-chessboard, you know? Pretty cool, I think. In fact I’m actually pretty hot now. Tanned and stuff. Your crappy English weather really held back my full potential. Tan? No sun. Abs? No sunny days to show’em off. Sun glasses? I don’t even think they sold them over there. No need, no supply, you know? No sun… yeah, basically you just need sun. Sorry, I’m going on a bit, yeah, sorry. Uhm, yeah.”

“Wait, wait where are you? I haven’t even asked you that yet! What the fuck am I thinking?” 

There was a brief moment, a moment too long. 

“...huh? I’m at home?”

“Okay but, where’s Home?” Arthur felt the weight of his head suddenly, a dizzy spell threatening to settle onto him.

“Uhm, they already told you this. America, with my parents, you know?”

“Who told me? What?”

“Well just, like, people in general. Your mom, my mom.”

“Alfred… Alfred I don’t… I don’t think I understand.”

“What? I don’t get what you’re so confused about?”

“Alfred no one told me. Don’t you… don’t you know?”

“What? What do you mean no one told you? Told you what? Told you I was moving back to America? I get it was rushed, and you hated me and all that, but they would have told you! My mom said she would.” A shuffle, a quiet noise. “No, yeah. I remember, she said she’d drop you round an apple pie and tell you. You don‘t just forget something like that.”

Arthur took a deep, deep breath. Fresher and more dense than anything he had breathed before. His heart raced, his vision reduced to colours and shades and shapes, his mouth unable to shut. All in a mere second, as he felt as though he didn’t exist, atleast not properly. Not fully. Then he felt oddly fine again.

 

“No one told me Alfred. No one told me cos you’re meant to be dead.” Arthur said this casually, as though he was expecting Alfred to agree with him and move onto another topic. The weight of his words didn’t dawn on him till Alfred said, much quieter now and all compressed into one breathless syllable.

“Wait, what?”

Arthur took a moment to stop. To breath in that cold and fresh air that seemed to have dispersed out around him. He looked at his mother.

“You knew.” He said.

He heard Alfred reply on the phone, but he didn’t listen to it. He couldn’t. He needed to hear the answer. Needed to hear his mother. 

She looked up at him, having before been beginning to settle down uncomfortable at the dining table. Her eyes wide, her lips scrunched, her face pulled tightly towards its centre. She said nothing as she said everything. 

“You knew.” He repeated. “Knew he wasn’t dead. Didn’t you, mum? Knew, didn’t you?” 

“Arthur, I have no… Arthur you need to understand.”

“Just tell me Mum, tell me if you knew or not.” His words sensible, his crackling voice not as much. With each word, it sounded as though he was tuning into a far off radio station, a mixture of highs and lows and quiets and louds all in one sentence. 

“Arthur… my darling,” she looked around at Alistair, who was staring down at his lap with a forkful of noodles hanging out his mouth. He didn’t look up at her. “My darling, I did know, but there’s more to it than that! Please, there were reasons, I promise, my dear.”

“Just a yes or no, mum, did you know he was still alive?!”

She looked away, back to Alistair again, tapping erratically away at the rim of her empty plate.

“...I did. I did know. Arthur, I’m so sorry, let me explain. I’ll explain it all!”

That was when he heard the smash, and felt the flying scraps of plastic against his jeans before he realised what he had done. The phone lay in pieces at his feet, and then after a gurgled scream, at his knees as he fell to them. He didn’t try to grab at the pieces, knowing even in his blind panic that there were far too many of them to try and do anything, instead he brushed them into himself, watched some broken corners skitter off from his sudden movements. Solicitously he shielded them, like a mother cat around plastic and sharp little kittens. Helpless. Weakly and steadily debilitated. 

“No! Fuck, fuck!”  
A hand was suddenly on his shoulder, and then another, he felt too angry and exhausted to push them away. Though he did try, shoving his shoulder to the right and and falling forward with his head in his hands, elbows digging discernibly into his thighs. The hands caught him again, around his chest, and pulled him back up as he leaned into them languidly. He felt Alistair's chest against his back suddenly, hugging him whilst also acting as his own spine.

“Come on, now,” he said, in that brotherly way that meant it would all be alright, as much as the vacancy in his voice let on that maybe he didn’t think it would be. “Come on. Come and sit down at the table, so we can talk about it.”

Arthur shook his head, pressing his palms into his eyes, feeling a lulling buzz in the back of his head. “No. No I don’t want to.”

“That’s just being silly, come and sit down with us.” A brief pause as he struggled to keep Arthurs squirming shoulders still. “I’m sure mum has a lot to say.”

“Well no shit, Alistair.” He yelled sharply, unsticking his hands away from his eyes, gleaming green light shooting it’s way into his vision. He looked up at Alistair, saw the addled squint of what could only be pleading. Then looked away again. “She has a lot to fucking answer for, doesn’t she?”

Alistair sighed. So heavy and excessive that Arthur pulled his weight from his brother, feeling- somewhere in that ugly, pitted and fleshy landfill of disorientation and upset- a prick of guilt and self-blame. For a brief and paparazzi-flash moment of awareness, phone plastic still digging into his knees and elbows still pinned to his thighs, he felt embarrassed; Embarrassed that he was curled on the floor in his brother’s flat, sobbing out what was left of that warm family feeling he had had the day before. Embarrassed that he had relied on an unspoken lie so much that without the dug up concrete of its comforting logic, he had no foundation. No spine. Embarrassed that his mother was now looking down on him, his boneless and seventeen year-old torso being supported by his elder brother of only six years. And finally, last of all, and perhaps the one that upset him the most, was the fact that he was crying over Alfred- who was a boy, and not a girl. It embarrassed him so much, in fact, that it moulded into a sense of worthlessness, which ironically turned out to be the final push to get him standing. Not wanting Alistair to waste anymore energy on someone like him.

Alistair tooks his hands back, looping a tight arm around Arthur’s shoulders in replacement and getting him moving towards the table before he could refuse. He pressed him against a chair gently, a foot of space between he and his mother. He didn’t look at her.

“Uhm, right.” Alistair shuffled in opposite them, picking up his fork again and twirling it empty between his fingers. “Yes… uhm. So, can someone fill me in? On something? Because I only popped out to get some tea, wouldn’t have if I’d realised the whole world would crumble without me here.”

Arthur watched his mother shuffle out of the corner of his eye, her feet tapping away at the carpeted floor underneath the table. “A lot’s happened, my darling, I don’t know where to start.” 

“Don’t listen to mum, she’ll only twist it. She does that I guess, she lies.”

“I didn’t lie, Arthur. Not a lie.” She said, her hand inched towards his, and then she thought better of it. 

Arthur guffawed, bringing his eyes to look into hers now, feeling quite like a magistrate, slumped open-legged in his chair. “You didn’t lie, yeah? Well there was definitely no… what the fuck would you call it? What would you call telling me my best friend is most likely dead for a year, then? A black fucking truth?”

Alistair sat back, a realisation slacking over his features.

“Was that… what, that was Al… Al whatever on the phone?”

“Yeah,” Arthur looked at him, lips pressed together, still directing his words towards his mother “Yeah it was Al-whatever on the phone, alive and very fucking well, actually. Would you call that dead, mum? ‘Cos if you would then I’d invest in a dictionary or something.” He laughed, only short and without humour “Can’t bloody believe it.”

“Arthur! Arthur just listen to me, will you? Try and understand why I did what I did.”

“I can tell you right here and now, yeah mum, that there won’t be a reason good enough to make me not hate you.”

“I did… there was, it was…” she pushed at her words, pushed so hard they broke and choked out from her lips, the shattered explanation forming itself somewhere in between all the jibberish. “I did it to protect you.”

Arthur looked at her again, this time slower, not as confident. “What?”

“To protect you. From him. No, no... not from him. From what… well we agreed, his parents and I. We agreed that… it was agreed between us that both of you had, had so much potential. In life. And that… and that perhaps,” she took a breath, looking at him with a finalised expression. “And that perhaps it would be better for the both of you if you were to be kept apart, my dear, unable to… influence each other. I thought, no, I think still, that this happening - with the woods and all - was a gift.”

“Mum!” Alistair blurted, his mouth open, but he had obviously nothing else to say. And as it turned out, neither did Arthur. Painful minutes ticked past, as each word and the separate stories they all spoke took time to sink in, resting over Arthur’s skin like an eczema. 

“But…” his jaw shuddered, and he took a time to bite his tongue and get it under control. “But when you say… what do you mean by ‘better if you were to be kept apart?’ Why?”

“Yeah, actually, I wanna know that too.” Alistair added on, frowning.

“It means…” exasperated, finished, she answered. Clear and calm. “It means when we found out what you were doing, back in that forest, we didn’t want you to do it again. Okay? We thought… well I’m sure- we were sure it’d be better if this whole… _close relationship_ thing between you two was best forgotten. Left in the mud,” there was a brief smile as she looked down at her clasped hands. “Left in that forest, I suppose.” And now the smile was gone again, replaced with a half-baked and wrinkled frown. 

“I love you, Arthur.” She said after his silence provoked her. “I did it because I did and still do love you. So very much.” She tried to take his hand, but he ripped it away without thinking, her touch feeling as cold and as foreign to him as the denim that had begun to fade from his skin.

“That’s… that’s sick, mum.” Alistair said, quietly, maybe to himself, breathing it into his cupped hands, “So wrong and just… yeah, sick.”

“Alistair, Alistair don’t. You’re not helping with your little observations.” She retorted, not looking at him, gaze fixed dizzily onto her lap.

“You’re just angry because he’s right,” Arthur said accusingly. “In fact he’s spot on, isn’t he mum? It’s sick, what you’ve done, lied to me all this time. Knowing what it’s made me feel like, knowing what it’s done to me… and even then you kept lying to me. Didn’t you? All those times I came to you, telling you I wanted to… I wanted to die, mum. Them times I hugged you because you holding me was the only thing keeping me from fucking ending it all. And… and that time when you came into the bathroom and I was holding all those… those bottles of…” He stopped, a heavy pressure like the crushing imbalance of a branch sinking into him. “And you told me all those things, all those ‘I love you Arthur’-s and ‘oh I wish I could make it better Arthur’-s… or even maybe ‘I would do anything to help you, Arthur’-s

“Except you knew the one thing that would make it all better and you were… you were too selfish to care. Too busy thinking about something that doesn’t even matter! Yeah, that’s right, doesn’t even matter. No matter what you think, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter that I loved him- Alfred- just doesn’t matter that I still do love him. Doesn’t matter that it is a _him_. That’s so fucking stupid.” He wiped at his eyes, he wasn’t crying yet but a stinging pressure was bubbling at the corners of his eyes.

“Arthur, please. It isn’t like that, it just is not-“ she began, Arthur felt the deep welt of pure-bred annoyance at the sound of her words, and the insinuation of them. _How dare she_ was all he could think. _How dare she even try_.

“Well then explain to me what it is then? Tell me everything, mum. And make it fucking good, because if it’s not then this’ll be the last time I listen to anything you have to say.” He noticed now that she was crying, noticed that he didn’t care. Not right now.

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” She answered, quickly and with no thought of her semblance. “But I know now, know now that maybe it wasn’t.”

“ _Maybe_ it wasn’t?”

“Please, just, listen. Please. I know…” she waited, nothing came. “I know you think it doesn’t mean anything. Your affliction. I understand that maybe you feel it wholeheartedly. I do, I understand that. It’s a big thing, it’s a whole word, it’s a strange thing - that word - a strange thing. And you’re growing up and you want to… to get a sense of yourself. So your letting it become… become everything and all things about you. Arthur I know you are. That’s not what I wanted for you, but I can’t say no, can I? Not when you were so hurt and… and sure. That’s why I told them. Our family, that’s why I told them, because you wanted me to. And I wanted you to be happy.”

Arthur laughed coldly.

“I did, Arthur. I know it feels hard for you to see it now, but I really did. I thought… I thought I’d let you get over it. In your own time. And I’ve done that, haven’t I? I’ve kept true to that… but Alfred’s parents, well they didn’t want to do that. They didn’t want Alfred to have anything to do with that at all. I did try to fight it, Arthur, I told them it was just… just you both being teenagers. That you’d get over it eventually, but they didn’t think so. I suppose things are different in America… anyway, we had to find some way to deal with this. Stop trying to interrupt me, please,Thank you, my dear, I’m sorry… and so, uhm, and so we decided that perhaps, perhaps Alfred and you shouldn’t be able to see eachother any longer. That would be for the best, we thought.

“And… and as I’ve said, I do still think. But that doesn’t matter now, no, don’t try and argue, it doesn’t. Just let me finish, please. I just want you to hear it all.”

Arthur sat back, his protests dying hard on his lips. Having the undesired urge to ‘hear it all’ as well. She took a deep breath, as though releasing a strong hold on some sort of verbal barricade. She looked up and down in a fluid motion, sighing loudly, and then like reading a book out loud, began to speak.

“I’ll… I’ll start at the beginning of it all. I think, yes I shall. A year ago, I’ll start from last year. When it all happened. Well… Arthur, at first I was just as distraught as you had been. I had no clue about any collusion you may have had. No clue of anything apart from the fact that you were distraught and I was your mother. And so, when I found out what had happened- the details- well what else could I do but go along with you? Do whatever you wanted. Oh… but I didn’t want to believe it, Arthur, not at all. The things they said you had done- or were about to do- oh, it hurt me so. Made me feel ashamed. Yes, that’s the cold hard truth of it, I was so ashamed. You were such a good boy, with a good personality and you chose good friends, or so it seemed. You just didn’t… you didn’t do stupid things like that. You’re not like that. You were my little boy who liked chocolate biscuits and making jokes and was going to grow up to be a architect, find a nice family and have wonderful, wonderful children. 

“Needless to say, I felt as though that had all been crushed. I mean… the way they described it had made it sound like a singular incident, but I knew as soon as I saw your reaction to hearing it- the way your eyes widened and wouldn’t look at me- Well, I just knew it wasn’t just that once. And then, I suppose everything fell into place, best way I can describe it now is like a dominos set. Once that had been set off, and you thoroughly denied it didn’t you? But once it had been set off, it made me start to think. About everything that had seemed oh so normal before. I… I… for an example, I suppose the first thing that clicked for me was how constant and without fail you would go round his house. Alfred’s, I mean. I thought it was all just… well best friends being best friends. But the more I thought about it, along with knowing what I did now, it just became more and more abnormal. Not what friends do, not boys at your age, anyway. And the sleepovers, all the time you would want sleep overs… I can’t imagine what you would have gotten up to in those

“And you know I don’t mean to upset you Arthur, when I say this, but as I said before… the thought just makes me feel so ashamed. And I don’t want it to Arthur, don’t misunderstand me, I do want to understand why you do what you do - please don’t interrupt me - but I just can’t. I can’t understand why you should… should choose to ruin yourself as you had. Oh, I don’t mean ruin… I mean… I don’t know what I mean. But you understand, don’t you? No? Oh dear… I… well I’ll just carry on.”

There followed a brief moment where Arthur had the biting urge to stand up, throw his chair to other side of the room, push the table onto it’s side and walk out. But he thought of the chocolate biscuits, and everything else that had ever come before, and stayed seated. His mother continued shortly after, now looking off into a corner thoughtfully.

“His mother and I became very close after that. Both rather panicked about your reputations… and she, of course, had lost her only son. Uhm, remember how much I would pop out to the shops? How much we seemed to run out of milk? Well, I was really going to see her, see if she was alright. And then, on one of these visits- one in the evening so it would have been dark by now- she was ecstatically happy. I remember, she was absolutely buzzing, bustling me in the door as soon as I arrived… took me straight to the kitchen, I was thinking… thinking by now that ‘oh, she must have baked a very nice cake this time, can’t keep herself under control’ and then I walked in expecting a big old smell of cinnamon or something, oh I don’t know. You know they have that weird beady curtain thing in the kitchen doorway? Yes, well as soon as I brushed that aside, I saw his father standing there, and then…”

Her hands moved about in front of her as she took a moment, frowning, something lost in her eyes.

“And then I noticed ‘oh well he’s looking a bit fat. Must be a very very nice cake, indeed.’ But of course it wasn’t all him, was it? There was another bundle next to him, clinging. A big black and puffy one, I think he was wearing a coat, I can’t quite remember. And then this big black bundle moved, and turned it ghostly white face to me and… well, and it was him, Arthur. It was Alfred. Everything felt so light at that moment, like we were all being carried away by helium.” She looked up at Arthur, offered a small and sad smile, and then gazed back off into the corner. 

“And, well I won’t lie to you Arthur, my first thought - and I must have said this out loud… yes, yes I did- my first thought was ‘oh, I have to go right back home and tell Arthur,’ oh how joyfully happy you would have been… but I remember, remember that as soon as I said that, all that floating-on-air-feeling was just whisked away by this aweful, aweful gust of heavy and almost hot… anxiety. She had grabbed at me, that woman, grabbed at me so fast and hard I had at first thought she was stumbling over. But she was upright and fine as I looked at her, just looked terribly distressed. ‘No’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you.’ Alfred wasn’t looking at me now, just shaking if I remember correctly… poor boy, I’ve still no idea what he went through in that week and a half.”

“Anyway, She took me off into the lounge at this point, sat me down on that large black bean bag they have, you know the one. I’ve always hated it, doesn’t do my back any good and it shouldn’t be considered an actual piece of furniture, ‘less for children maybe-“ she wiped at her eyes. “Sorry, sorry I’m going off. Anyway, she put me down and then sat opposite me, and I remember I was so utterly confused that I just asked, ‘what?’ And she seemed to know instantly right off the bat what I wanted to know, because she answered so quickly and told me so much that I was really left questionless after. She told me that… uhm, that Alfred had arrived home that afternoon- only an hour before I had arrived- he had just turned up at their door like a muddy and bruised little apparition, shaking and crying and holding his arms out for them. They had cleaned him up and fed him and comforted him, they hadn’t questioned him about the whole you and him thing yet, but she made it very clear to me she certainly was going to after he was better.

“And then she went on to say, and this is the bit you’re not going to like, she went on to say ‘I think it’s better if you don’t tell Arthur that Alfred is back.’”

At those words, Arthur realised that there was not a feeling more crushing and heart breaking then that of thinking someone might have chose to care wholly for you, as he did with Alfreds mum, only to realise you didn’t mean as much to them as you thought you did, and you were merely just a passing event on the edges of their life. 

“And so… well I didn’t say anything because I was sorely shocked after that, rather angry, and you know I hate confrontation, don’t you? So I suppose… well then she carried on, explained it to me all, and it all just made sense, and so-“

“What did she say?” Arthur asked, quickly before she could stop him.

“What did she say?” His mother repeated.

“Yeah. What did she say that made so much sense?”

“Oh, well… well I really can’t remember all that well.”

“Try, then. Tell me.”

“Well I… well all she said, Arthur, was that, uhm, perhaps this was a chance to have you two able to live normal lives apart. You understand? She told me that Alfred had asked about you, asked about you as soon as his teeth had stopped chattering and he could speak again, and that she had told him that… that you didn’t want to see him again, that you had _come to your senses_ , I suppose. And although he had been thoroughly upset, he was all but willing to not talk to you again, if that be your wish. Shush please, I’m nearly at the end now, just wait till I finish, then you can speak, please. 

“She told me how she was planning on moving back to America with him soon, and that all I need do for your well being was pretend I hadn’t seen any of this. And as much as I hate lying to you, my dear, I had to. For you. I did it for you. I love you so, so much, Arthur. Please never forget that, any anger you feel right now, please know that through it I’m your mother and I still love you.”

Arthur took a moment, watched her carefully before succumbing to drumming fury in his stomach. He stood up, held the back of his chair, leant over it and dug his arms into the wood. Then he stood up straight again, once the pain had subsided his sadness, and after a moment of pure silence, kicked it over in a fit of rage. Planted his foot right onto it, almost snapping it in two. It barrelled forward. Hit the wall with a deafening and muffled crash, wrapping itself up in net curtains. All while his mother screamed.

“Fucking hell, Arthur! Calm it! Just calm it.” Alistair yelled, launching himself up and making a grab at his brother. Arthur stumbled from his attempt, shoving him backwards in retaliation, sending an arm flinging out to point at his mother. He jabbed at the air as he spoke. Shouted. She flinched at every accusatory movement, like a guilty dog sent off to sit in the corner.

“Did you hear any of that?! Any fucking thing she just said? Did you?!” Arthur yelled, voice already straining.

“Yes. I did, Arthur. Heard all of it, alright? And I don’t like what I heard, okay? But you can’t go destroying my flat like god-fucking-zilla!”

“I’m so… so fucking angry! I have no words, just no words. I just feel like… like kicking and smashing something.” Bear-like noises slipped out in lieu of words he could not find. Short and sharp little breaths.

“Aye, And you bloody well did! Look at my fucking chair! My curtains fucking shredded! And, and not to mention your phone as well! What the fuck has gotten into you? Just calm the fuck down!”

“If you tell me to calm down one more fucking time, I bloody swear, Alistair, I’m gonna knock your fucking face in.”

“No you fucking wouldn’t. Couldn’t, even if you wanted to.”

But Arthur was already pelting full fisted at him, taking a clumsy swing, one and two. Slamming into empty air each time. Blinded by tears and unaware which way was forward, he kicked out. Hit something. Howled in pain as he realised it was the wall. He sprawled forward and planted into it face first, hands locked around the hot red pain in his foot, a searing hotness erupted in his cheek, making his eye feel like a smashed marble in it’s socket. Arms locked around him suddenly, heaving him up like a mannequin.

Disorientation and anger and upset. 

He hit out again, clawing at the hands seatbelted around him- Alistair’s hands- holding him tight and upright. 

“It’s alright.” Alistair told him. Arthur tried to kick back, but the pain made his foot feel heavy and numb, and he couldn’t even lift it up.

“You’re alright.”

He lashed out again, but Alistair was holding him too tightly for even an arm to move. That was when he began to cry, warm liquid-anger flooding out from him. He put his hands to his eyes, body beginning to fold down and press into his brother. He wiped away tears, blood mixed with them. He held the smear of it close to his face, could smell it’s unfamiliar copper twang, and cried harder. 

“It’s alright. You’re alright… apart from your eyebrow. But we’ll get that fixed up. You’re alright.” Alistair held him closer, tighter, maybe even crying himself. Arthur found it hard to tell. Focused only on the tear-blurred image of his mother, elbows up and hands clasped on the table, ready to jump up. He choked up a word, wanting to hold her, wanting to never see her face again. 

“I love you.” She said.

He wanted to say it back, needed to, even. Began to choke up the syllables, finding the strength in some form of forgiveness to say them. But they just wouldn’t come. Instead, a familiar phrase grazed between the roof of his mouth and his tongue. One that had been long ingrained in his panic, his grief, his anger, his desire. And finally, feeling an utter cacophony of physical and compressing inner pain, he let the words shoot from him.

“Get lost and die in a fucking black hole, Mum.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This is a long note but kinda sorta important, so if you have the time to read, then I'd be real grateful yallc;)  
> AhHhH yes and here it is c;  
> Sorry it's taken so long, GCSE's, y'know? probably not, but now you do  
> Thank you to everyone who left a review on the last chapter, you guys got my exam-stressed little heart all warmed up and ready for some angst<3
> 
> Next chapter will be the last (prooobably, but it's ya old pal Lux here, so don't take that as set in stone lmao) and I can't tell ya how damn upset that makes me, I love writing this odd little fic of mine, and seeing how you guys have enjoyed reading it enough to leave a whole review??? like??? it makes me tear up a little :")
> 
> BUT, but, I do have a few new fics lined up, one depressing one almost ready to be published, one set in the sixties with a bit of appropriate angst and finally a joint effort with a friend at something historically accurate and semi-comedic (I'm shocked as well, me? and humour? a brave crossover)
> 
> I really hope you can all join me on those, because when this fic is over I'm gonna super duper miss how much you guys all make me able to actually be able to enjoy my writing, and also see interpretations even I hadn't thought off (and love) <3 
> 
> Also big ol' s/o to my creepy old pal _Diurnal Days_ whom threatened me with mild discord kidnap and a very frightening water gun to really help spur me on and get this chapter finished c; They've been a real big support with this fic, and to make a long story short, they're just an absolute babe tbh  <3
> 
> And thank you all soooo so much for reading, I really can't wait to read your reviews about this chapter, I'm gonna use them as rewards at the end of my revision sessions so I actually end up revising lmao, yall are the best <3


	6. Signal

It’s not time yet. 

Seconds tick past, minutes build up, but it’s not time yet. He’s not here, so it can’t be time yet.

Alfred taps away at his cardboard cup, he doesn’t know if he should take a sip or not, it still looks too hot. He couldn’t have been here long, not if steam’s still rising, burning his lingering fingers. It shouldn’t have been more than five minutes. He’s not here yet. Alfred hopes he’s still coming. 

How long has it been now? He checks his watch, there's two on his wrist, ticking rhythmically together. It wouldn’t have been that long. He’s not even late yet. He’ll be on time. But he’s worried now, future is being wasted. He takes a sip from his cup, counting the seconds away, holding his wrist up in front of him as the slideshow of moving time that’s curled around his wrist ticks on. Now he’s late. He won’t come, will he? He’s late now, that’s for sure. He’ll only be later, now. Now he’s already late. Can’t be any earlier, can he?

He slams the cup down. Eases away from it’s escaping heat. Rests his palms against his eyes and feels the scar running along his eyebrow. Flinches away from it. He wondered how long he had fallen for, how much time it had taken for a rock to smash his eye and a loose branch to break his finger. Can’t have been long. Snap, bang. “Ah, fuck. Shut up, fucking brain.”

He doesn’t like thinking about it, so he stops. Moving his attention to the one thing that had occupied him these past weeks, his phone. He slips it out his pocket, opens it with a flick, it glows blue and then white and then with a pixelated date and time.

_March 3rd, 2003_

_1:32pm_

He bites his lip, closes the phone, then snaps it open again.

_1:32pm_

He won’t come, will he? Why does everybody take time for granted? They don’t know what it’s like to be without it, he supposed. They don’t know what it’s like to feel like there’s an endless, stretching pattern of light and dark that means nothing but sunlight and shadow. Time’s much better when it doesn’t roll out like that, when it’s something solid that can be divided into strips. Like... kitchen towel. Time’s like kitchen towel, he thought. And Arthur was taking too long, he’s going to come at the wrong time. A very wrong time, if he even comes at all. _Where is he?_

The door opens, a small bell rings. Alfred can’t breath because it’s him. It’s Arthur. But it’s not. He looks like him, smiles like him, catches his eye like him. But he’s not all him. He’s older now, his hair’s darker, maybe shorter. His black jeans aren’t ripped and his pale neck is scarf-free. Alfred wasn’t sure what he was expecting, and in every way he supposed it was this, but he still took his time to look. To wonder.

“Uhm… Alfred?” He sounded like him too. Not entirely, he was more fragile with his words, testing them out before fully committing to them, but that was his voice, his sentence.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.” Alfred answered, his chair screeched as he stood up, metal against wood yelling out exactly what he was feeling. “Arthur?”

“It’s me as well, mate.” It is him. All of him.

“I… I… how ya doing?”

“Jetlagged.”

“Oh… oh yeah, course. Sit down, sit down. You want a coffee? Tea or something? I don’t know, latte? I don’t know what you drink now.”

“Beer mostly, but they won’t have that here, will they?”

“Not at one in the afternoon, atleast. Definitely not.”

“Black coffee’ll do, then.” He smiled, but didn’t go to sit down. Waiting.

“Oh! Oh yeah and… yeah. Come ‘ere, you.” Alfred said, but it was he that skirted towards Arthur, first offering him his hand, but then letting a bristling jolt of forlonging stiffen up from his stomach and lever open up his arms, offering him a hug. Arthur looked at him -or maybe he didn’t- maybe he didn’t need to look, because maybe he just knew and felt the same. This was a hug they needed to have, because it might be the last they could. Before time wound back round again and everything started to show the toll that change had taken on it.

Arms were round Alfred’s torso in seconds, the watch ticked solemnly in his peripheral vision. Arthur’s hair was against his neck, hands on his back. Alfred let out a pelt up breath he had been holding and recycling for four years. Fresh air instantly filled him up, and it smelt of Arthur. Smelt of rain and biscuits and his home and their past. He breathed in again, patting his back roughly as though jamming their chests together. He smiled. But it was starting to go on for too long, people were going to be looking now. He cared, but he didn’t, just wanted to feel Arthur against him for a while longer. Didn’t want people to see. 

He pulled away, letting his hands linger on Arthurs shoulders for a second, before catching sight of his watches and letting his arms drop. Arthur jolted with a breath as though he remembered himself in that moment, looking around as he began to shrug his long coat off.

“I’ll uhm… go get you that coffee.”

“Thanks.”

When Alfred came back from ordering, Arthur was sitting down, phone resting in his hands, fingers clicking away. He placed himself opposite, waiting a second for any acknowledgment, and when none came he asked briskly “who ya texting?”

“Hm?”

“On your phone there. Who ya texting?”

Arthur looked down at his mobile, frowning, as though only just realising it was there. He shut it slowly, placing it in front of him, keeping a hand wrapped around it.

“My brother, he uh… well you know all that, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“You know… with my mum and all that. The funeral…”

“Oh, yeah. You’re… yeah that’s right. Sorry.” Alfred tapped away at his cup again, raising it to his lips, pressing the heat against his tongue. Not drinking any. Scared he may waste away the conversation in a sip.

“Yeah… it’s uh… it’s been tricky. Because I wasn’t talking to her much before she uh… kicked the bucket, you knew that, didn’t you? So yeah, I can’t really help plan anything, doing what I can though, can’t leave it all to my brothers. Knowing them they’ll end up renting out an ice cream van instead of a coffin.”

Alfred laughed, covered his mouth with his coffee cup quickly.

“I wouldn’t know, never got to meet the Alistair one. All I got to go off is what you’ve said about him. And no one can be that stupid.”

“It’s my family, trust me, we can.”

“You can’t rival mine. ‘Specially not me.”

“How’s yours then?” Arthur asked, and then quickly, too quickly. “Your mum? She alright?”

“Yeah...Yeah she’s doing good. When I told her I was coming to see you she didn’t lose it like before. So… that’s something, I guess.” 

“She still doesn’t like me though?”

“She don’t like… she don’t like much anymore. Likes her tv and her cooking. That’s all. She really didn’t think you were gonna come today.”

“Huh?” Arthur frowned. “What d’you mean?”

“I mean, told me you wouldn’t come. Adamant I’d be wasting my time.” _And I hate wasting time._

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Utter bitch,” he laughed emptily. “Sorry. Sorry, didn’t mean that. Just… well you didn’t believe her, did you?”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here talking with ya if I did, would I?”

“Got a point there, ‘Spose. But I mean, you did trust me, didn’t you?” 

Alfred hesitated, watched Arthurs mouth grow tight as he waited.

“Course I trusted ya. But I mean… we all got doubts, don’t we? When someone’s telling you something ain’t gonna happen, you kinda gotta believe ‘em a little bit.”

“Not when the person telling you is a lying piece of shit.”

“C’mon, go easy a bit, that is my mom, dude.”

“Sorry. Yeah, sorry… to be fair to me though, you did say you didn’t like her.”

Alfred pressed his lips together, felt like he was smiling.

“Yeah, and I don’t. Not much, anymore anyway. But I gotta love her, aint I? Still my mom.”

Arthur shrugged, leaning forward and resting his chin into his hand.

“What? You do gotta. You didn’t love your mom?”

He shrugged again, heavy, looking away. Alfred felt like a heat hit him, his coffee swirled in his stomach as he threw about the words he had just said, heating him up inside and out. He decided that maybe he shouldn’t have said them, probably shouldn’t have, no. He always said stupid things, didn’t take any time to think about anything anymore. He wanted to apologise, but he wasn’t entirely sure about what or how to say it. By the time Alfred was beginning to fumble with a few imploring words, Arthur was sitting up, fumbling about inside the coat hanging on the back of his chair.

“Anyway, you’ll never guess who I saw on the way over to Heathrow earlier.” He said, pulling out a green packet of half eaten polos. He offered them over, and Alfred pinched one, happy to have something to occupy his still jittering mouth.

“Oh yeah? Who?”

“Will.” Arthur chewed on his mint loudly, cracking it like extra syllables to unsaid words. He was obviously waiting for Alfred’s reaction.

“Uhm… who’s that?”

Arthur’s eyebrows raised, but only momentarily, then a laxed almost-relief washed over his face.

“You remember, Will from our form? He’s a black cabbie now, called him over by coincidence and uh… well yeah it was him. Gotten well fat he has.”

“Oh…” Alfred sat back in his chair heavily, suddenly reminded of everything. “Oh fuck… really? Him? I didn’t-”

“Told me to tell you he was sorry.”

“Huh?”

“Wanted to apologise. Will did. He asked me where I was heading off to, see, so I told him I was coming to see you. Bloke almost ran the cab off the motorway,” Arthur was laughing. “ He was all _‘Alfred’s alive?’_ and I was all ‘ _oh yeah, he is actually.’_ ‘Cos I’d forgotten no one actually knew - well, apart from Lilli, ‘course I told her- and anyway, it right shocked him, and I still don’t think he quite believed me by the end of it, but he still told me to tell you he’s sorry. All like _‘I have a gay friend now Arthur, yous aint too bad. Yous fine’_ bollocks like that, you know? But I think he did actually mean it.”

Alfred’s mouth was open, and when he finally realised, he quickly filled it up with the rim of his coffee cup, tongue suddenly feeling rather cold. Maybe it was the polo, maybe it was the memory.

“Well,” he began, putting his cup down on the table, forcing himself not to pick it up again, not to put off conversations that needed to be had. “That’s nice of him, but it’s not really his fault, is it?”

By Arthurs judicious expression, Alfred could tell he thought it was, so he added on with a sympathetic shrug “We were all just kids, weren’t we?”

“Hm...yeah, well he was a particularly bratty one. Came out the womb a dickhead, if you ask me.”

“Ha, yeah I mean, I agree, but I don’t hold no grudges ‘gainst him.”

“Guess that makes sense. I’m just grateful he didn’t get us into a car crash, other than that, I dont give a shit about him.”

There was a steely pause in the conversation as Arthur’s coffee arrived, a white cup as big as a soup bowl, which he made sure to remark on as soon as the silence had had run it’s due course. Alfred replied something or other about America, and Arthur had laughed. Both still not entirely at ease. They talked about various miscellanities after that, what Arthur had been getting up to after school - Alfred was rather surprised to learn he had bargained himself a job as a chef at a carvery-

“They’re that desperate, are they?”

“Leave off. That fire alarm at school was outrageously sensitive and you know it.”

And Alfred had in turn told him about his part time work as a lifeguard at a swimming pool, how entirely boring it was and his happy upset at the finding out that the only reason he landed it was because - as he was told by his boss - ‘you got a smokin’ hot body but a brain that don’t match, good luck brains ain’t the things wearing skin tight trunks though, huh?’ 

“Is he wrong, Alfie?”

“I’m smart.”

“Maybe I’ll see it, one day.”

And those conversations had taken so long and been stretched out so far by friendly jokes and nostalgic anecdotes that by the end of them, both coffee cups were empty and the café’s patrons were beginning to dwindle in number. It was at the moment when a sour faced girl had started sweeping up around their feet, that Alfred had suggested they leave. She made him uncomfortable.

_She knows._

“I think it’s time we go, Art.”

“You want to?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm...fair enough. Fancy a walk, then? Or we could go straight back to my hotel, they have a nice little restaurant of sorts.” 

“We can kill two birds with one stone if we _walk_ to your hotel,” Alfred suggested, shrugging his puffer jacket on, folding the sleeve up over his watches, catching the black reflections ticking round in the glass.

_Stop._

_You have time. Stupid, you have time. You know the time. Arthur’ll notice._

“It’s only a short ways up,”

“It’ll be nice then, a stroll.”

“Hah, yeah, look at us, we really have grown up, taking evening strolls after our bowls of coffee.” Arthur remarked, tying up the coat’s belt around his waist.

“This is what school prepared us for, aint it? That and circle theorems”

“Careful what you say, you might find a triangle laying around that needs a bit of Pythagoras done to it.”

“Doubt it, I already had my morning fill of Pythagoras at breakfast this morning, I think I’m due for some finding-the-area-of-a-cone later, though.”

They had laughed, stepped outside, cold wind bristling at the tucked hems of their coats. They began to walk against it, and then out of nowhere, Arthur had popped his hand out from his folded coat sleeve and slotted it into Alfreds. Friendly and warm. Bright. Alfred felt it like a flashing red light. People would see, they would see and they would know. Look at them and know, couldn’t even hide it, plain as day. It didn’t feel so friendly and warm then, felt more like something sticky and stiff. He pulled his hand away, tucked it into his coat pocket and looked off into a boxed-off and built up distance.

“Sorry,” Arthur said, after a placated moment had passed.

“S’alright.”

“Should have asked.”

“Nah. S’alright, don’t worry ‘bout it.”

“Guess I just thought… yeah, guess I was thinking, you know…”

“Yeah, s’alright.”

Arthur didn’t say anything else, and so Alfred couldn’t. They walked in silence for a short while, orange sun glaring straight onto them like a spotlight. Alfred felt horrible, and the happiest he had been for years; Arthur was here, Arthur was next to him, Arthur had touched him, held his hand under the sun, done all that he had dreamt of for years. He hated it. Hated how everything had fallen into place so suddenly and perfectly, and how - from it - he couldn’t help but dig up that childishly buried feeling of shame and fear he had years back. He was worse now though, because he understood what it all meant, to be ashamed of oneself. The agonising hypocrisy of it, it’s infuriating interminability. He also felt the changes in them both so starkly, and knew that with that came the confirmed certainty of all that had happened, how they had been pulled apart and put back together by a deadly mixture of fate, pressure and people. They hadn’t arrived here together -that café- and they wouldn’t leave here together, nor would they even leave themselves, because this day could only bring change to something Alfred felt should have never had ever experience change in the first place. They should have been together, those years. Completely wasted time. And this planned meeting -as perfect as it made him feel- ruined him all the same. He really rather wondered how Arthur felt, as he walked through the swinging park gate with a smile on his face.

“There’s a swing set.” Arthur said. “There, see it? There’s two of them.” 

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“well, Since I suggested it, probably.”

“Awh, Shut up. Race ya?”

“You’re gonna win.”

“Exactly, why would I say it otherwise?” But Arthur had already bolted, leaving Alfred with a wind at his ankles that he soon took off from and followed on, he reached the swing set first, jolting past Arthur and leaping off from a conveniently placed boulder in a mound of mud and grass, laughing. By the time Arthur reached him, panting, Alfred had already settled uncomfortable into one of the swings, metal bolts dug into his sides with a dull pain, and made his legs feel wooden every time he pushed himself off from the ground, it felt great. Arthur was soon seated beside him, matching his gentle swings, Arms wrapped around the metal chains and feet barely skating off the ground. 

“Nice it’s empty.” Arthur said. “Haven’t been in a Park for donkeys. So, nice it’s empty. It’s the kids that put me off.”

“Really? I kinda like the kids.”

“Careful, there.”

“Ha. You know what I mean. Childhood, y’know? Was a real nice time.”

“Hm, guess so. Mainly just because we didn’t have a clue what was going on, though. Shit was still kinda… messed up.”

“Well, maybe, but I think you had it harder than me,”

Arthur leant back, letting his weight swing him softly.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Just dunno.”

“Yeah, because… ‘cos how your parents split up, and your brother left, and then when those rumours came around…”

“Nah, that was nothing. Not really, I was too young, see? Can’t remember.”

“You can remember the rumours, surely.”

“I think those got you worse than me. With what you said before. With your mum?”

Alfred shrugged. A sour feeling in his stomach.

“Maybe, She believes stuff too easily, I guess. But I mean at school, you got it the worst there, didn’t you?”

“I could take it.” Arthur said, nonchalantly.

“Couldn’t have been nice, though.”

“Wasn’t so bad.”

“Wasn’t too good neither.”

“Yeah, but wasn’t so bad. You’re saying it like they’d flush my head down the toilet or something. S’only a couple notes, just things like that really.”

“Still.”

“S’not a competition, Alfred, for who had it shittier. Not a bloody competition.”

Alfred buffered his feet against the floor, stopping the swing and using the busy moment to look away.

“No, no. Didn’t mean it like that. I was just saying.”

Alfred heard Arthur huff, a few wet noises following, like he was juggling with words. He was upset, maybe.

“D’you not like me?” Arthur asked. Words like little stones.

“Huh?”

“I said, D’you not like me? Anymore, or something?”

“What? What, ofcourse I like you!”

“‘Because you’ve been off today. Just asking ‘cos of the way you’ve been. You’re acting… yeah, off-like. Wondering if it was because you didn’t like me anymore.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” _He’s noticed. The watches, the time, you’re off of it and you’re wasting time right now. Just be normal._ “I’m acting like I normally do.”

“You’re not, mate. You’ve been… well, café was alright, first part was alright. Then you… then you wouldn’t drink, kept sort of drinking but not. ‘Course I didn’t say anything then, because I don’t care if yous drinking your coffee or not, but I’ve been thinking about it. Fact you weren’t and all, drinking it, just pretending... Also, two watches, and you keep looking at them. What’s all that about? Anyway, never mind that- wait, hold on okay? Just let me finish before interrupting. And then, uhm…” he scooched around, leaning himself against the swing’s chains, facing Alfred. Confronting him. “And then outside. When you wouldn’t… why wouldn’t you hold my hand? I mean, I know we haven’t seen each other for a few years, yeah sure I know that, but it’s not like we haven’t talked almost every day. As soon as I got a new phone after the other one broke, made sure I kept the same number and all, and we did talk. All the time. So we haven’t really been apart. So why wouldn’t you hold my hand?” 

Arthur looked like he could have carried on, probably was about to, words ready at the very precipice of his tongue, so Alfred interrupted him quickly. Quietly.

“Stop, Stop.” He said, taking a breath. The sun was too nice for this, the tranquility of the park, the soft orange against them both. It felt like a hot red. “Just stop. Listen, kay?”

When Arthur didn’t reply, he carried on, slower and more thoughtfully, but without thoughts. He really didn’t know what to respond to, how to respond, or even if he should. 

“I uh… well I’m nervous, first off. Real nervous. ‘Cos you're right about us not seeing each other in years. We haven’t. And so of course I’m nervous, maybe you aren’t, I get that maybe you’re not, I do. But I am. I’m so, so nervous. Been nervous all week, couldn’t sleep, I was all jittery from morning till late, yesterday. Thinking maybe… thinking maybe you wouldn’t be coming, wouldn’t turn up. And if you did, which you have, I was worried you wouldn’t like me, thought I’d changed and wouldn’t like me no more. Alright? So… yeah. I was nervous. Maybe I’m acting weird ‘cos of that.” He’s leg was shaking, pumping out the beat to his racing heart. He hated conversations like these.

“Why wouldn’t you hold my hand?”

“I would, I will!”

“Then...But you didn’t, did you?”

“Just surprised me.”

“Just sur… then why didn’t you say that? You just let me think… I don’t know, yeah you just-“

“Didn’t just surprise me, then, I guess. It uh…” his chest deflated, this happened too fast. This wasn’t meant to happen. Not till later. It was the wrong time. They were wasting the time they should be enjoying. _Wasting it_. 

“You guess? What the hell are you going on about?”

“I’m saying. I’m saying… I’m saying it was, there was…” _fuck. Think._

_“_ Oh, shit.” He heard Arthur say, but it felt as if it had reverberated from inside him. “Oh, dear.”

“Listen. Was it…” Arthur began, and then Alfred felt hands on his shaking shoulders, childishly comforting. “Calm down, yeah? I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just… wondering, is all. No need to get upset. I’m sorry, Alright? Forget it.” There was something in his voice. Maybe it was pity.

“I’m sorry, too.” Alfred wanted to say, but it felt like bottle caps had lodged in his throat. Was he crying? No. No, didn’t feel like he was crying. Maybe he was, he never felt what he was actually feeling, anymore. 

“Was it…” Arthur’s arms were around him now, holding him tightly, bracing against him from behind, like a second pair of lungs. He must have been crouching, maybe kneeling. “Was it because… Were you embarrassed?” He asked. “Because it’s alright if you were. ‘Course it’s alright.”

“I… There was…”

“Oh, shush it. Yeah? We’re alone now, so you stop crying. Okay? Stop that. I’m sorry. I really, really didn’t mean to uh… to upset you. Yeah? I’m sorry, Alfred.”

“Yeah, I was embarrassed.” Alfred admitted, maybe out of the fact he was feeling it again, that embarrassment, it was picking him up and pulling him round full circle, so he really had to admit it. And he was crying, he could feel that now. How stupid. And Arthur was absolutely fine, wasn’t he? Like a shelf, with his arms around Alfred, holding them both close and warm and still. Absolutely pristine. Not a question about him. So suredly and swiftly doing everything. Like following a map, an instruction manual. And here was Alfred, too scared to hold him back, crying because he was crying. Embarrassing.

There was a seatbelt like pressure on his chest, like Arthur was trying to pull him backwards, but then it was gone as fast as it had came and Alfred realised Arthur had stood up, moved round in front of him, and then crouched down again, taking Alfreds hands off the swing’s chains and holding them in his lap.

“You know…” he said, his gaze faltering, and then returning more defiantly than ever, he squeezed their hands together comfortingly. “You know, you and I, we’re not the same people that we were, not even the same people who spoke on the phone to each other. We’ll have arrived here… uhm, as ‘ourselves’, and leave as strangers, really. We’ll know eachother better than ever, and maybe not at all. That’s really… sort of how it goes, when things change. And, you know, change sometimes means we forget there’s still some of our old selves inside of us; when it pops back up again, it’s uglier than ever because it’s been festering away inside a part of us that just… just hates it. And we think… or I… and we think ‘well what the hell is this? I thought I got rid of you!’ And then we try to forget it, and we do that by… by suppressing it, I think. I know I did, and it was… well, it was scary, and it felt mature and healthy at the time, like I was finally learning how to deal with shit myself. Realise what was right and wrong, and I thought no one else in the whole wide world felt the same way. ‘Cept for you, then you disappeared. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but you did, you just vanished, right off the face of the earth and I was left with… left alone. And I had to decided -in that year- what I was gonna be and how I was gonna live it. But you…” He moved their hands up and down together, only softly and thoughtfully, like giving a hand shake that meant so much more. 

“Arthur?”

“But you… you didn’t have that time, must have been really horrible. Lost like that, must have been… well I can’t even imagine. Scary, fucking scary. And then being told I hated you, told I didn’t wanna see you any more, and forced to move your whole life off. Moving right over here, away from everything you’ve ever known, right after you’ve just got it all back. Horrible. And I won’t ever ask you what happened, or how you managed to survive like that, find your way home in the state you was. Won’t ever ask, you can tell me when you wanna tell me, if you ever want to, that is… but, anyway, what I’m getting at is that I was forced to accept this whole… part of myself, while you weren’t allowed, yeah? So when I say it’s alright to be embarrassed, even though I’m not feeling the same myself, I really do mean it. I guess I would be too, if I hadn’t grown so… so apathetic to it all, hard skinned. Yeah, We’re the same, you and me, and after this day we will be and we won’t be, the same, I mean. You’ll be you, and I’ll be me, but most importantly, we’ll be us. Together, despite what shit the world has thrown at us. And in this… this age where your own mum leaves you feeling like death because of some self-gratifying idea she’s got about what you are and how you should be, well, still even being able to be next to each other right now counts for something.

“So yeah… yeah. You take your own time, you come to whatever conclusion you wanna come to, but I’ll always be here, and I’ll always be me, and I’ll always… always… no, yeah...I’ll always love you for you.”

Alfred was sure everything about him was shaking, from his stomach filled with hot coffee to his clenched fists, with Arthur’s hands still wrapped around them like a net. The words had already burnt out, left with a smoke-like smell of evening sun and complete understanding. He’d never realised how much of himself he had locked away, till he felt it bursting out now in a choked up, water filled gush of security, happiness, safety - he didn’t know what. How stable it felt to finally feel like everything was going to be alright.

He almost didn’t notice that he did it, when Arthur began to stand up. Almost didn’t feel the mass of himself leaning forward - hard and aged weights falling from his shoulders as he did so. Didn’t feel the familiar shift of hard to soft, of cold to warm. Didn’t even feel Arthur’s hands on his knees, still ready to push up but stuck in a momentary pause. Didn’t feel their lips touching till they were pushing. And that was alright, because; he had forgot time in that moment, forgot himself, forgot what he thought he ought to be, forgot where they were, forgot how they got there, forgot what had got them here and, instead, was contented with knowing just that they were here. In America, in this park, on this swing over this ground with those hands and those lips and those promises of lifetimes. They kissed, and it felt so sure and full and inevitable that he could hardly believe they were only here because of the sliver of timing life had afforded them. This moment, with warm sunlight feeling as it should, had tightroped itself over to them on a single phone line, and against all signals and odds, seemed to have arrived stronger than ever. It didn’t stop when they pulled apart, Arthur shrugging, standing up properly, clearing his throat before speaking.

“Wasn’t… wasn’t expecting that. Guess it means you understood some of that waffle… it came from the heart, it really did. Who knew my heart was such a wet sod, ay?”

“Don’t try and act all soppy just ‘cause you lost the race to the swing.”

“Don’t try and act all hard just because you won the race to the _child’s_ swing.”

“ _Won.”_

“Ah, Alright. fuck sake, then.” They laughed. Laughed at nothing, really. Just laughed. Just together. 

No, the feeling didn’t stop, not when they were apart, and not when Arthur leant down and put their lips together again. And Alfred truly believed it never would.

Then, he felt a buzzing in his pocket. ‘ _Mom_ ’ peeping out the top and flashing on the screen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, That's it :") 
> 
> alright now for a lil gush yall
> 
> Thank you all sooooooooo so much for joinin' me on this fic, I really can't show my gratitude enough. The opportunity it's given me to try and grow as a writer, and just the enjoyment I've gotten from writing it and then receiving feedback from you absolute babes, has just been legit overwhelming, and I really can't put it into words other than to just give you all such a big, biiiiiiiig thank you :") I hope we meet in future works, whether they're yours or mine, I can't wait <3
> 
> and now for a couple extras; 
> 
> I've gotten a couple people asking me if it would be alright to draw fanart for this fic, and I just wanna say it publicly- I would be absolutely over the moon if you did that, so of course you can, I'd be so honoured i'd literally be speechless :") if you do end up drawing any, I'd love love looove if you could let me know somehow (so I could stan a little lmao),  
> -If you know me on discord, then please @ me or dm me there <3  
> -or if you'd prefer tumblr, then my @ is; American-adian 
> 
> I said a couple extra's, but that's all really lmao, I guess I'll link my writing tumblr down below, so if any of yall fancy requesting a written thing, then seriously feel free to do that there, I always love new ideas <3
> 
> writing blog; @.LuxLox-with-a-pen (without the dot between the @ and the name)
> 
> And one last time (I promise dw), Thank you all so much for reading, and if you decide to leave a review, then thank you so sooo much for that as well <3
> 
> -Lux

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! 
> 
> This is my first work on AO3 so I’m sorry if the formatting is a little bit off!  
> Thank ya so much for reading and I hope you come back for future chapters! Things are boutta get spicaye c;


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